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It said a lot about who Addie Joss was that the Cleveland Indians were willing to risk suspension — or worse, given American League President Ban Johnson’s capriciousness — to attend his funeral. And the event that was organized three months later as a benefit said even more about who Joss was as a pitcher, […]

This article was published in “The Stars Shone on Philadelphia: The 1934 Negro National League Champions” (SABR, 2023), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.   The 1934 Negro National League Championship Series between the Philadelphia Stars and the Chicago American Giants was a closely contested, contentious nailbiter of a series. Not only did […]

It sounds like a corny Hollywood movie. The home team has its back against the wall. It calls on its best pitcher, who bravely goes to the mound despite being sick. He not only wins the game, but hits a home run to boot. And if that’s not enough cornball for you, a friend had […]

“It was about time we beat ’em here.”1 That’s what 48-year-old2 future Hall of Fame reliever Hoyt Wilhelm told reporters after the Atlanta Braves defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-3, on September 2, 1970. The Dodgers were in Atlanta for a four-game midweek series, their final visit of the season to Atlanta Stadium. The fourth-place […]

The Florida Marlins started the 2003 season slowly. At 16-22 on May 11, the Marlins fired Jeff Torborg as manager and hired 72-year-old Jack McKeon as his replacement. The new skipper inherited a team that had just promoted rookie southpaw Dontrelle Willis from Double A on May 9. The Marlins played slightly better under McKeon […]

The buzz from the wildly successful start to their inaugural season had worn off.1 The fledgling Expos had just lost their 18th consecutive game, and they were about to head out on a grueling 18-game road trip. Instead of going directly to Los Angeles to prepare to face the Dodgers, they made a side trip […]

Lloyd Pepper Bassett made his name in Negro League baseball as the “Rocking-Chair Catcher.” If calling a game and receiving pitches while sitting in a rocking chair seems like a gimmick, the reason is that it was one. Bassett began his professional career with the New Orleans Crescent Stars, and low attendance led him to […]

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 […]

A master of the one-liner, Billy Grabarkewitz once claimed that “Abner Doubleday dreamed up this game [of baseball] to drive people crazy.”1 Perhaps no one knew this more than the diminutive right-handed hitting infielder whose entire career pivoted on injuries. It was injuries that slowed Grabarkewitz’s march to the big leagues; injury to fellow infielder […]

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 […]

Clyde Edward King spent more than sixty years in professional baseball as a player, scout, pitching coach, manager, and general manager with more than a dozen teams. Along the way, he played with Jackie Robinson, coached Bob Gibson, managed Willie Mays, and even fired Yogi Berra.  King was born on May 23, 1924, in Goldsboro, […]

“‘Double Duty’ Radcliffe—he was a good one. Pitched and catch. He was a legend.” — Red Moore1   Theodore Roosevelt Radcliffe sported one of the most iconic nicknames in the history of baseball: Double Duty. Few are so evocative of a player’s place in the game. Two jobs at the same time. Two for the […]

Rookie Granville Lyons received his first shot in the Negro Leagues in 1931 after Willie Bobo, the starting first baseman for the Nashville Elite Giants, died during winter ball on the West Coast following a night out in Tijuana, Mexico. Three years later, in July 1934, Lyons experienced quite the 11-day stretch in the Negro […]

Over the years, the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation’s leading African-American newspapers, used the following superlatives to describe Pittsburgh Crawfords infielder Chester Williams: Peppy, snappy, aggressive, hustling, scrappy, flashy. He was also referred to as sure-fielding, hard-hitting, a sparkplug, and even an inspired devil. From 1931 through the team’s demise in 1938, Williams was […]

At 6′ 2″ and 180 lbs, Vean Gregg was a lanky, loose-jointed southpaw who had a world of confidence, a wicked curve ball, and a roller-coaster career hampered by arm injuries. As a 26-year-old rookie for the 1911 Cleveland Naps, Gregg was only three years removed from pitching in the deepest bush of the remote […]

Roy Sparrow was a likable hustler, huckster, and self-promoter who throughout his life appeared to be in perpetual motion. While living in Pittsburgh, Sparrow juggled multiple occupations. He was a shoe salesman, worked for two newspapers, and developed a reputation for local sports promotions. He was a determined, albeit unsuccessful, entrepreneur who opened and closed […]

Although he spent just two full seasons in the major leagues, Dave Pope played in one of the most memorable games in baseball history. It was the game that featured “the catch,” Willie Mays’s spectacular play on a ball hit by the Cleveland Indians’ Vic Wertz in the eighth inning of Game One of the […]

With both Josh Gibson and Bill Perkins, the 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords were blessed in the receiving department. Any other catcher on the roster could not expect a lot of playing time. In April of ’35, Clarence “Spoony” Palm was that additional catcher. An itinerant receiver who had played for eight different clubs since breaking onto […]

The June 6, 1945, headline in The Dispatch (Moline, Illinois) read, “Cincinnati Clowns to Play at Davenport Friday Night.” The piece to follow reported, “Some of the greatest names in Negro baseball appear in the Clowns’ lineup, among them being Roosevelt ‘Duro’ Davis, second only to ‘Satchel’ Paige in Negro pitching circles.” Hyperbole or not, Davis, 41 […]

Rookie sensation Willie “Bubber” Hubert hurled the final pitch of the 1939 Negro National League championship, completing a four-out save for the victorious Baltimore Elite Giants over the Homestead Grays. Hubert, plucked into the NNL from the barnstorming Miami Ethiopians Clowns a year earlier, became a frontline starter for the Elite Giants the next season […]

Although Ernest “Spoon” Carter was never in the top tier of Negro League aces, he had enough pitching acumen to remain in great demand over the course of a 17-year career that also included stints in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Mexico, and Canada. In fact, teams’ desires for Carter’s services placed him at the center […]

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, a time when black baseball was wide open and strapped for cash, Curtis Harris was in his element. Arriving in Kansas City as a 29-year-old rookie out of Texas in 1931, the good-looking Harris hacked his way from one end of the circuit to the other, leaving opponents, […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Pride of Smoketown: The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords” (2020), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.   Introduction “Since the August Day in 1933, when ‘King’ Cole of Chicago, Gus Greenlee of Pittsburgh, and Tom Wilson of Nashville, saw a dream, which originated in the minds of Roy Sparrow and […]

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 […]