bartenders

I recently ran across the following note in a column called “Tavern Topics” in the New York Amsterdam News (October 17, 1942):

For several of these players (Williams and Thomas in particular) their careers as bartenders/raconteurs are well-known; some of the others I (at least) hadn’t heard of before.  As it happens, men over 45 had just registered for the draft a few months earlier (April 1942), so you can see their places of employment.  Here are Joe Williams and Clint Thomas:

Oscar Levis was not old enough to be part of this particular draft registration phase (the only one from World War II that has been made public so far).  I don’t know who John Crain is.  Brooks, of course, could be Irvin Brooks, though there was also the catcher Ameal Brooks (John Beckwith’s half-brother), who lived in New York at the time.  Here is Irvin’s draft card again:

I was able to find this ad in the Amsterdam News (August 9, 1941), announcing the Harlem Moon Bar and Grill’s grand opening, and giving the name of Irvin Brooks’s employer, Eugene Prince, as one of the bar’s proprietors:

But the most interesting find here (to me, anyway) is “Knux” James, a well-known infielder from the 1900s and 1910s whom I hadn’t pinned down in any records.  In Riley he is listed as “W. “Nux” or “Gus” James; the nickname is also sometimes rendered as “Knucks” (it pretty obviously comes from “Knuckles,” though I haven’t yet found an origin story for it).  Here’s another Tavern Topics item about the Orange Blossom Bar and Grill, again from the Amsterdam News (March 14, 1942):

And here is the draft card for one William James, employed by Edward Crolley at 570 Lenox Ave:

Here’s his World War I card:

UPDATE 4/4/2009  Back when I first wrote this I should have linked to this post on Williams’s post-baseball career by Mark Gretchen at his Smokey Joe Williams blog.  It includes a photo showing the Cornell Bar at 547 Lenox Avenue in about 1940 (as well as one showing the building in 2007).

Comments

[Albert Flannery]

Peterson said Gus james and Knucks James were two different players. Riley and Holway said they were the same man.The database says they were two players Knucks was 2b-3b Gus was catcher.Knucks played for Brooklyn Royals in 1907, but joined Philadelphia 1907

[Albert Flannery]

I would like to congrulate you on Negro League data base and respectfully point out a possible error. This is about Knucks James and Gus James. I do not believe the player with Brooklyn Royal Giants 1908 in Cuba is Knucks James. Figueredo identifies him as Gus James

[Scott Simkus]

Awesome stuff, Gary. I'm certain most of you know this already, but one of the fun things to do (thanks to technology) is use Google Maps for a virtual driving tour of the neighborhoods where these players lived and worked. With the "street view" feature, you can "see" the buildings they called home, then take a spin around the neighborhood.