Negro
League Players
BH Hub
April 20, 2025
Article 7 Negro Leagues Players
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You know you're a sports addict when you know that Hall of
Fame pitcher Satchel Paige had names for his pitches including, “Midnight Creeper,
Wobbly Ball, Trouble Ball and “Whipsy Dipsy Doo!”
Negro League Players
The Jim Crow era from the mid to late 1800s until the 1960s
encompassed and in some cases embraced state and local laws that enforced
racial segregation in the United States. The laws were named after a black
minstrel show character. Some examples of Jim Crow laws include:
* Louisiana required
separation of white and black patrons in movie theatres and other public places.
* Virginia closed any
schools that enrolled both black and white students.
* Arkansas required
state buses to have separate seating for white and black people.
* New York enforced
laws that kept black citizens out of the voting booth.
* Many states
enforced laws that prohibited intermarriage.
Baseball was not excluded from the Jim Crow era. After
several decades of mostly independent play of African American baseball, the
first Negro National League was formed in 1920. Seven Negro Major Leagues
existed at various times over the next 30 years. These Negro Leagues produced
some of the greatest players ever to play the game! Some of those include:
Norman Turkey Stearnes
There are a number of versions as to how Stearns acquired
his nickname “Turkey!” The most common version is that the name came from his
unorthodox batting stance and unusual style of running the bases while flapping
his arms. He started playing pro baseball in the southern Negro Leagues
initially with the Montgomery Grey Sox and then onto his home state team of the
Memphis Red Sox, all while still going to his high school in Nashville. After
high school, he played nine seasons for the Detroit Stars, four years with the
Chicago American Giants and finished his 18 year pro baseball career with the
Kansas City Monarchs. In his career he
led the National League in home runs 6 times, won two batting championships and
was a five -time All-Star. He ranked 6th in Major League Baseball in slugging
percentage and 7th in lifetime batting average with a. 348 average. Despite
Stearns baseball accomplishments, he had to work in auto plants to make ends
meet. He was a thirty year employee of the Ford Motor Company. Turkey Stearnes
had a standoff personality, and this probably detracted from his popularity.
Turkey's old track and field coach said of Stearns “never seen anyone like him
… he was a peculiar fellow, but he could sure play ball!” Stearns was inducted
into the baseball Hall of Fame in 2000 posthumously, 21 years after he died.
James Raleigh (Biz) Mackey
Biz Mackey had a relationship with the Negro Leagues for 30
years, both as a player and as a manager. He played for a number of teams
including the Indianapolis ABC's, Hilldale Daisies, and Newark Eagles. He was a
five time All-Star, 2 time league World
Series champion and in 1923 won the Eastern
Coloured League batting title hitting .423.
Mackey is considered by many to be the Negro Leagues premier
baseball catcher in the 1920s and 30s. Defensively,
his skills were unparalleled including a sensational throwing arm. He also is
one of the Negro Leagues all time leaders in total bases, RBI's, and slugging
percentage.
Biz Mackey was
inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, 41 years after he died in Los
Angeles in 1965 at the age of 68!
James
“Cool Papa” Bell
James Cool Papa Bell
played professional baseball in the Negro leagues for 25 seasons from 1922 to
1946 he played on four teams twice including the St Louis Stars, Pittsburgh Crawfords,
Homestead Grays and the Chicago American Giants. He also played briefly for the
Detroit Wolves and the Kansas City Monarchs. He was a two time Negro Leagues
World Series champ and was an 8 time All-Star. His lifetime batting average in
the Negro Leagues was .337. Bell started as a pitcher and got the nickname “Cool”
after he struck out standout player Oscar Charleston.” Papa” was added to his
nickname because it sounded better. Bell was considered to be one of the
fastest men ever to play the game. Legend tells us that Bell was so fast that
on one occasion he hit a ground ball up the middle and he was struck by the
ball in the back as he slid into second base. Cool Papa Bell became the 4th Negro
League player to be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. Bell died
of a heart attack in March of 1991 in St Louis.
Josh
Gibson
Josh Gibson was a baseball catcher in the Negro Leagues and
was known as a spectacular power hitter. He is attributed by many to have hit
almost 800 home runs and was called the “Black Babe Ruth!” He played primarily
for the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords from 1930 to 1946. Gibson
is the last player to win consecutive batting triple crowns in leading the Negro
Leagues in home runs, RBI's and batting average.
With Major League
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manford announcing the integration of Negro League
statistics in 2024, Gibson is now credited with having the highest single
season league batting average at .466 and the highest career batting average at
.371. So the greatest hitter statistically, is no longer Ty Cobb, it's now Josh
Gibson. Tragically, Josh Gibson died as a young man of 35 of a stroke in 1947.
Leroy
Robert (Satchel) Paige
Satchel Paige was a
baseball pitcher extraordinary in both the Negro Leagues and Major League
Baseball. His career spanned 5 decades as he began pitching professionally in
1926 in the Negro Southern League with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts and later
the Birmingham Black Barons of the major Negro National League. He threw a wide
assortment of pitches, some of whom he gave names to including, Wipsy Dipsy Do,
the Midnight Creeper, Wobbly Ball, Bat Dodger, Midnight Rider, Jump Ball, and Trouble
Ball. Satchel played for several Negro League teams including the Baltimore Black
Sox, Chicago American Giants and the Kansas City Monarchs. He also played for
teams in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico.
In 1948, midway
through the season, Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck signed Satchel to his
first Major League Baseball contract for $40,000. The contract was signed on Paige’s
42nd birthday making Satchel Paige the oldest debutant in Major League history.
He pitched for the Indians in 1948 which included an appearance in the 1948
World Series. But after the 1949 season Satchel was released from the Indians
ball club. Satchel caught on with the St Louis Browns and pitched from 1951 to
1953, more than 26 years after his professional pitching debut.
Paige is inducted
into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971. Paige died in Kansas City of a heart attack in
1982, just short of his 76th birthday.
Two memorable quotes from Satchel Paige include, “Maybe I'll
pitch forever!” (also the name of his book) and “Don't look back, something may
be gaining on you!”
As a sports addict, I
fail to understand how even the worst bigot or segregationist would not want to
see Negro League - African American ballplayers play baseball. Many of these
segregated players were the best players at that time. Baseball fans should
have demanded to see all players play the game with and against all the other
players, regardless of their race or ethnicity. Much can and has been said
about Jim Crow laws segregating African Americans in American Society. Those
articles are socio-political, but sports plays a role in society. This article points
its finger at sports fans and asks the question, why didn’t sports fans take a
stronger leadership role? Why wouldn't white sports fans want to see the best
pitcher in baseball in Satchel Paige, or the two best hitting catchers in Josh
Gibson and Biz Mackey, or watch Cool Papa Bell run the bases and make plays in
the outfield. Why wouldn’t sports fans,
a massively strong lobby group, reject segregation in baseball, arguing that we
pay to see the best players when we attend a Big-League game, we demand to see
all the best players!
If you went to a
Major League Baseball game in Pittsburgh in 1939, you would have paid the going
rate for an admission ticket for a Pirate game, knowing full well that the best
player in Pittsburgh is not only not in the line up, but he isn’t on the
Pirates team. He was playing across town for the Pittsburgh Crawfords. He was
Josh Gibson, and he is now statistically recognized as the greatest hitter of
all time. Gibson was denied the opportunity to play at the MLB level. Sports
fans should have been outraged.
My argument is that
sports fans should have led the charge towards integration. They should have
been driving the bus, moving people towards a more moral and just society for
purely selfish reasons - sports addicts of the day needed to get their fix. Sports
Addicts need to know that when they are watching the best players in the game,
there are no exclusions. Not just our values but our purchasing power should
have dictated that the best players be made available.
It was 26 years after
the initial formation of the Negro National League of Baseball that Branch
Rickey, the General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson to a
players’ contract, thus breaking the colour barrier in 1946. It took some teams
several years before they conformed and integrated by signing black players to
play ball for their ballclub. The Philadelphia Phillies were the last National
League team to integrate when they signed John Irvin Kennedy in April of 1957.
The Detroit Tigers in the American League did not integrate their ballclub
until 1958 with the signing of Ozzie Virgil. The last team to integrate were the Boston Red
Sox when they promoted to their Major League roster, Pumpsie Green in 1959.
Thank God integration finally happened, otherwise my
generation would not have been able to see the great African American
ballplayers of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s such as Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Bob
Gibson, Elston Howard, Willie Horton and Roberto Clemente. And that truly would
have been a shame.
The Negro Leagues should never have existed! Sports Addicts and baseball fans dropped the
ball. They were complicit when they should have been leaders in demanding the
change that society and sport were slow to embrace.
Favourite
Sports Team Nicknames – the Indianapolis Clowns (the last Negro League
baseball team).
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