Courtesy of Todd Peterson, here’s a photo I had never seen before of the 1910 Chicago Giants, from the Twin City Star, July 21, 1910.
Standing, L to R: Walter Ball, Harry Moore, Steel Arm Johnny Taylor, Frank Leland, Bobby Winston, Joe Green, Danger Talbert
Seated, L to R: Nate Harris, Chappie Johnson, Bill Pettus, Cyclone Joe Williams, and Felix Wallace.
I was surprised to realize that Cyclone Joe Williams’s death date is still widely and wrongly reported as March 12, 1946, including by the Hall of Fame. In fact he didn’t pass away until February 25, 1951, as reported by Laurence Alpert (via John Holway in this Baseball Guru piece), who found his death certificate.
Several newspapers took note of Williams’s passing in 1951, including the Pittsburgh Courier on its March 10, 1951, front page, in an item authored by W. Rollo Wilson (“WRW”; apologies for the poor image):
Joe Williams’s exact birth date, unsurprisingly, is a little less certain. His marriage certificate, according to Holway, listed April 6, 1885. His World War I and World War II draft cards, which he of course signed, say April 6, 1886. And his death certificate, according to Alpert, gives April 6, 1887.
Here is his World War I card:
And here is his World War II card:
UPDATE 4:41 pm Thought I would add the 1900 census record of the Williams family in Seguin, Texas, which gives Joe a birth date of May 1886:
UPDATE: 5:16 pm Also see the updated 2002 edition of James Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues, which says on its very last page (952) that Williams was born April 6, 1886, and died February 25, 1951.
Here is a passage from one of Ira Lewis’s “Passing Review” columns in the Pittsburgh Courier (September 11, 1926). It’s a fascinating discussion of publicity strategies in black baseball. The promoters and owners of clubs were often reluctant to hype their stars for fear of the individual players gaining too much bargaining power. Lewis argues, however, that “smart management” recognizes the importance of making ballplayers into “box office attractions.” The Homestead Grays, he says, finally broke through only when Cumberland Posey “got hep to the benefits of publicity and the wisdom of playing up his stars.”
Another takeaway from this piece: Lewis says of Joe Williams that “the Courier re-christened him from ‘Cyclone Joe’ Williams to ‘Smokey Joe’ Williams.” So the change in nickname is confirmed as a conscious publicity strategy, apparently cooked up by the Courier in cahoots with Posey (who was himself a columnist for the Courier).
I had long ago (more than a year, in fact) promised to post an article from the Baltimore Afro-American authored by the Brooklyn Royal Giants’ great Irvin Brooks—the player who has mistakenly been called Chester Brooks in most histories and reference books. I’ve finally managed to dig it up from my files, so here it is.
(Baltimore Afro-American, February 22, 1924)
On p. 150 of The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues, John Holway writes:
I haven’t found a 20-strikeout game, but I did find Cyclone Joe Williams striking out 13 New York Giants at Dyckman Oval, New York, on October 9, 1920:
(Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 10, 1920)
This game does not appear in the list of Williams’s starts against major league teams published in Holway’s Blackball Stars (p. 78), so it may be that this game hasn’t been noticed by researchers before (anybody who knows otherwise can say so in the comments.)
Overall, the Giants fielded a major league-quality team, though they were certainly not at full strength. In the lineup were four regulars—Larry Doyle, George Kelly, Earl Smith (who shared catching duties equally with Frank Snyder), and Benny Kauff (by plate appearances the fourth outfielder, but a better hitter than Lee King and at least as good as George Burns). Not appearing: Burns, Dave Bancroft, Frankie Frisch, and Ross Youngs, whose places were taken by utility men Al Lefevre, Fred Lear, and Miguel Angel (Mike) González, along with pitcher Rosy Ryan in right field.
On the mound was Jesse Barnes, who could be considered the Giants’ ace in 1920 (he led in innings pitched, won 20 games, and had the lowest ERA among the starters); after four innings he was relieved by Pol Perritt, who was only 28 but already winding down his major-league career.
For the Lincolns, “Thomas Jenkins” is of course Clarence “Fat” Jenkins.
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).
Dick Thompson sent along this story from the Providence Journal (August 25, 1924), about a doubleheader between the Brooklyn Royal Giants and two semipro teams (along with an ad for the games from earlier in the week):
Dick writes:
Dick Redding and Joe Williams did the hurling for the Giants. The games were played at Kinsley Park, which was the professional field at that time in Providence; the same field, I believe, that Babe Ruth played on while with Providence in 1914.
The Wollaston team was from Quincy, which is just outside of Boston. Wollaston is a section of Quincy. It was a pretty good semi pro team and several of the players had minor league experience. The pitcher, in fact, was Steve White, who pitched in the majors in 1912.
The Giants were touring New England that summer and I have some other games from Portland, Maine, as well, though my notes are in longhand. On August 16, 1924, Redding dropped a 5-4 game to a semipro team in Portland. Ray “Lanky” Jordan, who played in the majors in 1912 and 1919, was the winning pitcher. Redding's line was 8 innings pitched, 9 hits, 3 walks and 3 strikeouts.
Dick
Thanks!
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