agate type

“certainly our ball players are professionals” : the 25th infantry wreckers, hawaii, 1915

Patrick Rock has come up with some fascinating material on the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Wreckers in Hawaii during the teens.  The Twenty-Fifth was one of the four all-black Army regiments (also including the Twenty-Fourth Infantry and the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry) known collectively as the “Buffalo Soldiers.”  All four regiments maintained good baseball teams in the 1910s and 1920s, but the Wreckers were the preeminent Army baseball team of that time (at least among teams that stayed together for a number of years, as opposed to temporary wartime aggregations), featuring in its lineup such luminaries as Bullet Rogan, Dobie Moore, Heavy Johnson, and Branch Russell, along with a number of other future Negro league players.  The Wreckers enjoyed their heyday at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, from 1915 to 1918, and at Camp Stephen D. Little, Cochise Santa Cruz County, Arizona, from 1918 to about 1921 (or perhaps later).

Patrick has been scouring Hawaii newspapers for reports on the Wreckers and their participation in both Army leagues and competitions involving civilian teams.  I wanted to post one article he found (from the Honolulu Commercial Advertiser, July 18, 1915) about a dispute that erupted between the Twenty-Fifth and the other (non-black) Army teams at Schofield Barracks, who wanted to restrict the Wreckers’ practices and stop them from paying their players and exempting them from guard and fatigue duty.  It has long been understand that the Twenty-Fifth Infantry team was essentially a professional club, and here we have the regiment’s representative, Lt. Charles Wyman, being quite frank about it.  “Certainly our ball players are professionals,” he says.  “They have received pay for playing.”

Anyway, check out the whole article.  (You should be able to enlarge by clicking.)

 

johnson, herring, stewart, 1920 st. louis giants

A few months ago Patrick Rock sent me copies of all the baseball coverage from the St. Louis Argus, 1919 through 1922. One of the first things I wanted to check was the U.S. Army Championships in late June / early July, 1920, and the concurrent movement of several players from the Army to the St. Louis Giants (Stewart, Moses Herring, and Heavy Johnson) and Kansas City Monarchs (Dobie Moore and Bullet Rogan).

There was nothing about Moore and Rogan, and Stewart still doesn’t have a first name, but otherwise the Argus confirms nearly everything I had speculated about, and adds some interesting new information.

--Johnson and Herring actually first appeared for the St. Louis Giants on June 24 against the Cuban Stars; in fact, Herring was hit by a pitch during the winning rally in the ninth inning (and may have scored the winning run).  I hadn’t previously had even a line score for this game, so this is new:

 

(St. Louis Argus, June 25, 1920, p. 5)

--Here the Army team that the Giants played on June 28, featuring Branch Russell, Carl Glass, and Dorsey Battles as well as Johnson, Herring, and Stewart, is referred to as the “U. S. Army Champions,” and is explicitly said to consist of players who were in St. Louis to compete in the Army athletic meet (meaning that Heavy Johnson, for example, must have been competing in some event).  Also, there were supposed to have been two games between the Giants and the Army team, but I’ve found a record of only the game on Monday.

(St. Louis Argus, June 25, 1920, p. 5)

--Here is some commentary from the St. Louis Giants’ owner, Charlie Mills, on his new acquisitions.  Headline first:

And then the relevant section from the article:

(St. Louis Argus, July 2, 1920, p. 5)

--Here is the first non-circumstantial evidence that Moses Herring of the 25th Infantry was indeed the St. Louis Giants’ Herring:

(St. Louis Argus, July 9, 1920, p. 1)

--Here is also confirmation that all winners of events at the Army Championships were to have been given berths in the Olympic trials held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, later in July.

 

(St. Louis Argus, July 9, 1920, p. 1)

As I have noted before, the trials took place on July 17 and 18, which conflict with St. Louis Giants games in which Moses Herring appeared.  So he definitely chose to play baseball in the Negro National League rather than compete to be in the Olympics.  I still don’t know whether Herring’s co-champion in the running hop, step, and jump, future Negro Leaguer Branch Russell, went to the Olympic trials or not.

--Finally, the following piece:

(St. Louis Argus, July 9, 1920, p. 5)

This tells us two things:

1) That “Johnson was kept out of the game after Monday by the army authorities,” which hints at an explanation for why Heavy Johnson, according to Dave Wyatt the best prospect of all the Army ballplayers joining the Giants and Monarchs at that time, did not continue with the Negro National League (he would join the Monarchs in 1922)—presumably Johnson did not get himself properly discharged, for whatever reason;

And 2) as I had speculated, Herring competed in (and won) the running broad jump on Monday, July 5, then rushed to Giants’ Park to join the game against the Cubans already in progress, coming in for Eddie Holtz at third base.

heavy johnson, st. louis giants, 1920

More than two years ago, I presented a circumstantial case that slugger Heavy Johnson played briefly for the St. Louis Giants in 1920, then returned to the Army for another two years before signing with the Monarchs in 1922.

Well, here is a passage from an article in the St. Louis Argus (June 2, 1922) about Opening Day, 1922, with the Monarchs, featuring Heavy Johnson, visiting the Stars:

 

“Johnson will be remembered as the husky soldier boy catcher who was with the Giants for a short time last year.  He returned to the army and on his release he was picked up by the Monarchs.”

The reporter says “last year,” which would be 1921; but it seems highly probable that he’s talking about 1920, when an Army ballplayer named Johnson played in two games for the Giants (one as a catcher), knocking out a game-breaking triple.  Dave Wyatt wrote at the time (July 10, 1920; see below) that “Uncle Sam has just recently turned loose a whole flock of baseball players from his army of athletes; St. Louis Giants grabbed three classy boys, one a catcher who is said to be the peer of them all.”  The three were infielders Moses Herring of the 25th Infantry, Stewart of the 24th, and “Johnson,” the catcher, “the peer of them all.”  It looks pretty certain now that he was indeed talking about Heavy Johnson.

Many, many thanks to Patrick Rock, who has recently supplied me with the complete baseball coverage of the St. Louis Argus for 1921 and 1922!  

Here is the Dave Wyatt article (Chicago Defender, July 10, 1920):

oscar johnson addendum

David Skinner let me know that researchers have found another possible death date for Heavy Johnson: March 13, 1962, again in Cleveland.  I checked this out, and found this record, in the U.S. Veterans’ Gravesites database:

Name: Oscar Johnson
Born: November 5, 1896
Died: March 13, 1962
Service Start Date: September 17, 1917
Buried in: Beverly National Cemetery, Beverly, New Jersey

The birthdate, of course, is similar to the birthdate found in the SSDI (November 2, 1896), though there it is coupled with a completely different death date (January 1964).  The service start date, September 17, 1917, is well after Heavy Johnson is known to have served in the 25th Infantry in Hawaii (beginning at least in October, 1915), and conflicts with the service record I found that puts his enlistment on December 10, 1913.  And finally, this Oscar Johnson is buried in New Jersey.  If Heavy Johnson passed away in Cleveland, it seems unlikely that he would have been shipped to New Jersey for burial (there certainly would have been more convenient national cemeteries); in addition, Heavy Johnson has no known connection to New Jersey.

It turns out that a World War I draft card exists for an Oscar Johnson born on November 5, 1896 (Heavy Johnson, of course, would not have had to register for the draft):

He was from Philadelphia, his father was a Swedish immigrant, and his race is recorded as white.

will the real oscar johnson please stand up?

Heavy Johnson’s current “official” dates, as found in Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia (2001 addendum p. 939), are: born November 2, 1896, Atchison, Kansas; died January 1964, Cleveland, Ohio.  There are two reasons for thinking that these might be mistaken:

1) The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) has an Oscar Johnson who fits these dates perfectly (born November 2, 1896; died January 1964), plus his Social Security Number was issued in Ohio before 1951.  Of the seven Oscar Johnsons listed in the SSDI who died in January 1964, this is the only one who comes anywhere close to the information  Riley gives for Heavy Johnson. 

When looking, however, at the “Ohio Deaths” database at Ancestry.com, the only fit is an Oscar Johnson, “non-white,” aged 67 (thus born in 1896 or 1897), who died on January 12, 1964—in Cincinnati, not Cleveland. (Let me emphasize that he’s the only Oscar Johnson listed in this database to have died in the state of Ohio in January 1964.)

Oscar “Heavy” Johnson, the baseball player, would not have filled out a World War I draft card, because he was already in the Army, where he served from at least October 1915 until spring 1922, when he joined the Monarchs.  However: I did find a draft card for an African-American named Oscar Johnson born on November 2, 1897—in Cincinnati, Ohio.  And one of the things we definitely know about Heavy Johnson is that he hailed from Atchison, Kansas.

This means that we can make a strong link between the Oscar Johnson of the SSDI and an Oscar Johnson who was born in Cincinnati.  There is a one-year discrepancy in the birth date (1896 in SSDI, 1897 on the WWI draft card), but that’s pretty common in such records.  In order for us to believe Heavy Johnson’s dates in Riley, we’d have to believe that there existed two black men named Oscar Johnson who had the same birthday (November 2, either in 1896 or 1897) and who died in the same month (January 1964) in the same state (Ohio), but that somehow they don’t coexist in either the SSDI or Ohio Deaths database.  It is certainly possible, but you can see that it’s a little unlikely.

2) The second reason for doubting the dates given for Heavy Johnson is that the birthdate, November 2, 1896, does not square with the 1895 Kansas State Census, which was, presumably, taken in 1895, and includes Oscar, aged two months, living with his family in Atchison.  The 1900 and 1905 records obviously show the same family, with the ages more or less consistent throughout (allowing for the small variations typical in these kinds of records).  The 1900 census shows a birth date of April, 1895, for Oscar.  The 1905 Kansas State Census shows Oscar aged 10.  As I’ve said before, this is the only African-American named Oscar Johnson shown living in Atchison over these three censuses.  Again, while it’s possible that there were two black Oscar Johnsons in Atchison over this time, only one of which shows up in the records, the likelier explanation is that Heavy Johnson is indeed this Oscar, and that he was born well before November 2, 1896. (Images from these census records were posted yesterday.)

I have three other records to throw into the mix here.  The first is the 1920 census, which shows a black man named Oscar Johnson assigned to Camp Stephen D. Little in Nogales, Arizona, aged 28, born in Kansas, with both parents born in Virginia (the birth states match the Atchison Oscar Johnson).

The second is a World War II draft card for an Oscar Johnson living in Ohio, who was born on April 20, 1892, in Atchison, Kansas:

And the third is this, from Ohio Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines, World War, 1917-18, p. 8543 (digitized by Ancestry.com):

To translate:
Name: Oscar Johnson
Race: Colored
Residence: Youngstown, Ohio
Enlistment Divison: Regular Army
Enlistment Location: Columbus Barracks, Ohio
Enlistment Date: 10 December 1913
Birth Place: Atchison, Kansas
Age at Enlistment: 21 7/12 years [meaning born in April or May, 1892]
Assigned to Company K, 25th Infantry until discharge
Promoted to PFC: 1 March 1917
Demoted to Private: 1 November 1917
Promoted to PFC: 9 July 1918
Honorable Discharge: 30 March 1919

Again, unless there were two Oscar Johnsons from Atchison, Kansas, who served simultaneously in the 25th Infantry, one of whom doesn’t show up in any records, these three records all refer to the same man, and he’s the baseball player, Heavy Johnson.  The 1892 birth year instead of 1895 is probably the result of Johnson lying about his age to get in the military, just as Bullet Rogan and Oscar Charleston did.  (And Rollo Wilson, btw, seems to be wrong on the small detail that Johnson left Atchison directly to enlist in the Army.)

Note also that Oscar Johnson was living in Youngstown when he enlisted.  This provides some strong evidence that Benjiman Harrison Johnson (born in Atchison, living in Youngstown), whose draft card I posted yesterday, was in fact Oscar Johnson’s brother Harrison.

So, although there are certainly some loose ends left, a likely interpretation of Oscar Johnson’s early life, as found in these records, would go something like this: he was born in Atchison, probably on April 20, 1895 (or thereabouts); sometime after 1905, he, his brother, and their father (as noted on Harrison’s draft card), and perhaps others in their family, moved to Youngstown, Ohio, where, in 1913, Oscar added three years to his age in order to enlist in the Army. He then used this false birth date for the rest of his life (just as Rogan did).  He was honorably discharged from the Army in March 1919, but had reenlisted by January 1920, when he appears in the census at Camp Stephen D. Little in Arizona.  He may have played two games for the St. Louis Giants during a brief break from the Army in July 1920; he definitely left the service for good when he joined the Monarchs in 1922.  His last stops in the major Negro Leagues were Cleveland (in 1928) and Memphis (off and on from 1928 to 1933, with a detour to the Dayton Marcos in 1931); by 1942 he was back in Cleveland, not far from Youngstown, where his family, or part of it, had lived in the 1910s (and perhaps still did).

Unfortunately, we’re left (once again) not knowing when or where Heavy Johnson died—though it would seem that Riley had independent information that he passed away in Cleveland, probably in the 1960s (the original edition gave his death as 1966 in Cleveland).

UPDATE 7:47 p.m.  ...though I should add that there is an Oscar Johnson,“non-white,” in the “Ohio Deaths” DB who died in Cleveland on October 9, 1960, aged 68 (consistent with the April 1892 birthdate Heavy Johnson seems to have used).  There is, of course, no direct proof that this is Heavy Johnson, but it does match the general thrust of the records presented here.

did casey stengel discover bullet rogan?

Reproduced below, with David Skinner’s permission, are some excerpts from several email conversations I’ve had with him about Casey Stengel, J. L. Wilkinson, Bullet Rogan, and the 25th Infantry Wreckers.  I’ve drawn on David’s research in some of these posts, but thought readers deserved to see everything he had to say.  (The excerpts are from two different emails sent several months apart, and overlap a little in subject matter.)

I respectfully disagree [David writes] that there is ANY evidence that Casey scouted Rogan for Wilkinson.  In his ghosted Casey at the Bat, he remembers him as “Grogan” and recalls playing the army team in Douglas, New Mexico.  He heaps praise on “Grogan” and credits him with later playing for the Monarchs, but makes no claim to have recommended him to Wilkinson.  This isn't to say that Casey didn't talk to Wilkie.  Casey's faulty memory is partly responsible for the misstatements of Robert Creamer in Stengel: His Life and Times, which in turn are the source for the misstatements of later writers like John Holway and Janet Bruce.

It was Creamer who decided that “Grogan” was Rogan and that Douglas, New Mexico, was Douglas, Arizona.  He should have quit while he was ahead.  I believe Creamer was the first to wrongly locate the 25th at Fort Huachuca, since it was the closest army base at the time of his writing and he didn't know of Camp Little, etc.  He may also have invented the story of Stengel tipping Wilkie about the Wreckers players, or at least Rogan.  Casey may have known Bullet, could have seen him or played against him in earlier days in Kansas City.  But he didn't scout him or even see him play in Arizona.  The Nogales Daily Herald, which I went through to research my article on the Wreckers for the Arizona Baseball Journal, tells us that Rogan, although team captain, was unavailable for the Stengel series, and that he neither pitched nor played a position.

David

***

I do know that Stengel never saw Rogan pitch in Arizona, despite his assertion that he did (although he called him Grogan), but he surely knew him from earlier days in Kansas City.  I know little about the 24th Infantry and nothing of the cavalries.  There may have been a company at least of the 24th at Camp Newell in Naco (the border town near here), by the way, the only place in the mainland U.S. to have been bombed by a foreign power (by mistake by an American mercenary flying for Mexican revolutionaries in 1919).  The Bisbee Museum has a ripped photo of a baseball team from a company of the 24th, no other ID.  I know nothing, although I would very much like to know, about baseball or players (except a story in the Douglas Daily Dispatch of a 10th Cavalry game vs.  the white 1st Cavalry team from Camp Harry J. Jones in Douglas, the third of the World War I / Mexican Revolution-era border posts) at Ft. Huachuca (where I used to teach and my son played soccer), but I do know from the post historian that the 25th was not there until after the period in question.

What I mostly know about is the 25th at Camp Stephen D. Little in Nogales in 1919, which I researched for an article in the one-shot Arizona Baseball Journal a decade or so ago.  They in fact did not play a lot of outside baseball, although each company had a team and they played each other, the details of which games were not reported.  I went through the Nogales daily for the whole year, after finding nothing in Tucson or Phoenix papers (also nil in Bisbee and Douglas dailies), and there apparently was off-post track and football (Dobie Moore starred in both) but little reported baseball.  The Wreckers were bragged by the Daily Herald as the best team in the Army, but their games were little reported, maybe a mention of winning a home game vs.  a local team from Arizona or Sonora, but no game stories. 

Until the visit of Stengel’s “K.C. All-Stars.”  The games at the Morley Avenue  grounds (site of the present WPA-built job where the Arizona-Mexico League and other ‘30s and ‘50s teams played in OB as well as the 2003 indie league club I operated, which led the league when it folded) were heavily front page promoted, initially filled with misinformation about “Stengler,” a “pitcher for the White Sox,” but later with much info about the KC players, five (including Casey, who was between engagements at the time) with major league experience, the best remembered being the catcher, future batting champ Bubbles Hargrave.  The rest of the so-called major leaguers had only had cups of coffee, two with the 1914 Buffeds, but the five noted all checked out, after allowing for misspellings.  There was a top AAA pitcher on the team as well.

The games themselves were barely covered except to note a fast game in front of a big crowd, one runs-and-hits-only line score.  Moore hit a big home run to win one game, one result (the final game) was never reported, and nothing more about baseball after the morning of game 3.  Captain Rogan, as he was called (his baseball rather than army title; all commissioned officers were of course white), did not play.  Little else to be gleaned from the Herald, just a lineup for one game with a few last names of future Negro Leaguers: Ward, 3B, White, RF, Johnson (which one?) C, Fagen (sic) 2B, Herring 1B, Moore, SS, making them the only Negro Leaguers I could confirm playing vs. “K.C.”  It was previously reported that “Captain Rogan and his aggregation of hitters,” would not be there, with the two future Negro Leaguers among them being Goliath and Hawkins.  Other Negro League names of Wrecker players mentioned during the season include OF McNair and P Cooper.  Of course most of the above names are linked to the Monarchs, but you know of Herring (and a Johnson!) with the 1920 St. Louis Giants; Goliath, Ward, and White were with the 1920 Chicago Giants.  It seems more than the Monarchs benefited from the 25th, but Wilkie certainly got the cream.

David

David also pointed out that the 25th Infantry was not, in 1919-1920, stationed at Ft.  Huachuca:

The 25th moved from Hawaii to Camp Stephen D. Little, and would not move to Ft.  Huachuca for some time.  To quote my article in the Arizona Baseball Journal:

Part of the confusion comes from the fact that Ft. Huachuca was long the home of black regiments, and that the 25th actually was stationed there from 1932 to 1942, and elements of it were there from 1928 to 1931.  In 1919, however, the 10th Cavalry, at Huachuca from 1913 to 1931, was the only black regiment on post.

I footnote that from Cornelius Smith’s post history, but the dates were confirmed for me by the post historian, directly from army records.

David

I also wanted to add to David’s commentary the fact that by 1920 J. L. Wilkinson had already known Wilber Rogan for several years.  According to Phil Dixon, Rogan pitched briefly for Wilkinson’s All-Nations club during a furlough from the Army in 1917, including one game (a loss) against the St. Louis Giants (see his book The Monarchs 1920-1938, pages 24-25).

rogan sighting

Just ran across this brief note in the June 5, 1920, Chicago Defender on the anticipated debut of a certain Army ballplayer with the Kansas City Monarchs:

The Monarchs are expecting a fellow soon, Rogan by name, and big leaguers who have seen him work pronounce him the best ever.  He is with the 24th regiment and will report the middle of June.

A couple of interesting points: 1) this accords with Dave Wyatt’s statement, discussed here, that Wilkinson had signed Rogan “early last spring,” and more generally with the notion that Rogan’s arrival was planned well in advance, rather than occurring on the spur of the moment in St. Louis in late June or early July; and 2) he’s here said to be with the 24th rather than the 25th.  Both units were stationed in Arizona in early 1920; it’s still not clear what the story is behind Rogan’s presence in St. Louis in January.

army ballplayers postscript

A few points of elaboration and some additional information on my explorations of the Army veterans who joined the Negro National League during its first three seasons:

1)    I don’t think I properly explained why it seems to me plausible that Heavy Johnson could have played a couple of games with the St. Louis Giants in 1920 and then disappeared, apparently back into the Army, only to emerge again in the spring of 1922.  It’s the fact of the Army championships, which gave many soldiers a reason to be in St. Louis temporarily in late June and early July of 1920.  Perhaps Johnson couldn’t get himself released from his military obligations (while his teammates Stewart and Moses Herring could), or perhaps he had no interest in a Negro League career at that time, and only played in those two games to pick up some extra cash.  As a parallel, we have the case of Branch Russell, who was definitely in St. Louis in 1920, and who would join the Monarchs along with Johnson in 1922.  He evidently stayed in the Army rather than pursue an NNL career right away—as did, apparently, Carl Glass.   There was also 56-pound-weight tosser Ezekiel Carolina, who, at the same time and place, decided to forego a (very good) shot at going to the Olympics.

2)    David Skinner tells me that Dobie Moore was a well-known participant in off-post football and track and field in southern Arizona in 1919.  Similarly, Larry Lester reports in his recent book on the 1924 Black World Series that Moore specialized in the 440-yard relay and the long jump, and played wide receiver on the “service football team” (I’m not sure if this means a 25th Infantry team, or something else).  In fact, I had initially thought that Dobie Moore might have been on the Southern Department’s 440-yard relay team in the Army championships, but it turned out to be the sprinter Richard Moore, who went to the Olympic trials.  I would bet that Richard Moore participated in those off-post track and field competitions back in Arizona, too…

3)    I’ve been able to push back the date of the debut of William “Wise” Johnson (a.k.a. “Big C”) with the Dayton Marcos to at least June 13, 1920.  On that day Johnson appeared as a substitute in right field against Joe Green’s Chicago Giants.

For easy reference, here are the first five posts in this series:

Where’s Wilber?
From the Wreckers to the St. Louis Giants
Bubbles, Heavy, or the Big C?
The 1920 Army Championships
From the Army to the Negro Leagues

from the army to the negro leagues: conclusion (for now)

I wanted to wrap up this series of posts with a quick summary of what I found in the 1920 census while looking for the various Army ballplayers discussed here over the past few days.  Of course, Bullet Rogan was at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, when the census was taken in January 1920.  But I found these names of Negro League interest still in Arizona, at Camp Stephen D. Little, Nogales, where the 25th Infantry was stationed in 1920:

Branch Russell, 27, born in Virginia, parents from Virginia. (His first name is also given in newspaper accounts of the St. Louis meet, as is his rank, private, and regiment, 25th Infantry);

Moses L. Herring, 24, from South Carolina (father from Massachusetts, mother from South Carolina).  It seems fairly obvious that this is the “M. Herring” who participated in the army championships (identified in the newspapers as a sergeant in the 25th Infantry).  So we may have identified a Negro League player about whom nothing has been known previously except a last name.  If all these Herrings (the 25th Infantry ballplayer, the St. Louis Giants’ ballplayer, the Army sergeant/athlete) are the same man—and the chain of evidence, while highly circumstantial, is pretty convincing to me—then now we know that he was the Army champion in the running broad jump and running hop, step, and jump, and that he seems to have passed up a chance at trying out for the Olympics in favor of playing for the St. Louis Giants.  Let’s hope his nickname wasn’t “Red.”

Oscar Johnson, 28, born in Kansas.  He would be five years older than the age Riley gives for Heavy Johnson (born Nov. 2, 1896, in Atchison, Kansas).  An Oscar A. Johnson, 23, born in Kentucky, was also at Camp Stephen D. Little in 1920, as well as, of course, numerous other men named Johnson.

Robert W. Fagen [sic], 21, born in Kentucky—on same census page as the above Oscar Johnson.

William Linder, 34, born in Tennessee—on same  page as Branch Russell.  In the standard reference sources, he is identified as sometimes called “Lightner.”  An April 1, 1922, Defender article lists Heavy Johnson, Branch Russell, and “Linder” as three new Army players joining the Monarchs; Phil Dixon quotes “Big C” Johnson naming “Linder” as one of the 25th Infantry players; and reserve lists published in the Chicago Whip (December 16, 1922) include “Wm. Linder” on the Monarchs.

Walter Moore, 24, born in Georgia—on same page as Russell and Linder.

At the Fort Huachuca Military Reservation, where black cavalry units (definitely the 10th Cavalry, and possibly the 9th) were stationed, I found:

Pvt. Carl Glass, 23, from Kentucky, a cavalry private.  His birthdate and place match those of the Negro Leaguer Carl Glass, a lefthanded pitcher from 1923 to 1936; in 1928 he was a pretty good pitcher/manager (13-10) for the mediocre Memphis Red Sox (36-51).  This Glass was in the cavalry; is he the same Glass that appears with the 25th Infantry team in St. Louis?

So, of the five Army players who joined the Monarchs and St. Louis Giants in early July, I think we’ve found the census records of three: Rogan, Moore, and Herring, and possibly a fourth (Oscar Johnson).  As for Stewart of the St. Louis Giants: there were fully ten black men at military posts in Arizona with the last name “Stewart,” seven at Camp Stephen D. Little, three at Fort Huachuca (and no African Americans in Arizona at all with the name spelled “Stuart,” in case you were wondering).  Riley conflates this Stewart, a shortstop, with a Stewart who pitched for St. Louis in 1923; but Patrick Rock says of the ’23 guy (whom he identifies as Archie “Tank” Stewart) that he only spent one season in the NNL.  I suppose they could still be the same man; unfortunately, there’s no “Archie” or “Archy” or “Archibald” Stewart in Arizona in the 1920 census.

To summarize, very briefly:

1) The path of Bullet Rogan, Dobie Moore, and other Army athletes to the Negro Leagues may have been different, and more complicated, than previously thought;

2) Circumstantial evidence makes for a fairly strong case that Heavy Johnson briefly played for the St. Louis Giants in 1920 (and it’s possible, though not likely, that he was older than previously thought);

3) We have probably newly identified a Negro League player, Moses L. Herring of the St. Louis Giants, though again the evidence, while strong in my opinion, is entirely circumstantial.

While a lot more research remains to be done on these points, I hope these posts have given some indication of just how much there is still waiting to be discovered about even the most famous Negro Leaguers, some of it hidden in relatively plain sight (the census, major newspapers, etc.).

the 1920 army championships

What was the 25th Infantry baseball team doing in St. Louis in June, 1920, anyway?  I’m not aware that they toured much (if at all) after their return to the continental United States in 1918; they were, after all, in the Army, and had military responsibilities.  Phil Dixon, in his book on Bullet Rogan, quotes “Big C” Johnson on the move from Hawaii to Fort Huachuca in Arizona: “It took three trips to bring all the troops [more than 2,000] back to the states.  After that, not much baseball was played” (The Monarchs 1920-1938 Featuring Wilber “Bullet” Rogan, p. 25).  By 1919, there was some baseball being played, according to David Skinner, who has written on the 25th Infantry team in Arizona, but it appears to have been all local (including a fall 1919 visit by Casey Stengel’s All-Stars).

But in late June and early July, 1920, a special event took place in St. Louis, hosted by Jefferson Barracks:

(St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 23, 1920)

This places the 25th Infantry, as well as the two African-American cavalry units, in St. Louis.  Had they been transferred from Arizona?  Another article a few days later (Globe-Democrat, June 26, 1920) provides a fuller explanation:

At these “army championships,” athletes competed for spots in the upcoming Olympic trials, to be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in July.  This means that the debut of five army veterans in the Negro National League (Rogan, Moore, Stewart, Herring, and Johnson) occurred in St. Louis just as a vast army athletic meet was being held.  And interestingly, the names “Moore” and “Johnson” are listed among the athletes in the Giants’ Park exhibition.

As it turns out, the army meet was fairly big sporting news, with results going out over the wire and appearing in newspapers across the country.  I didn’t grasp the meet’s significance until after I had returned the Globe-Democrat microfilm, so I didn’t check that paper for coverage of the meet itself, but I’ve since been able to find many mentions in other major papers.  The lists of winners often give unit affiliations and ranks, and include, among the many representatives of the 24th and 25th Infantry and 9th and 10th Cavalry, several names of interest, such as:

Sgt. M. Herring, 25th Infantry, 1st place, running hop, step, and jump; 1st place, running broad jump (Boston Globe, July 4; Atlanta Constitution, July 6).  The Atlanta Constitution gives St. Louis as his hometown.

Pvt. N. Johnson, 25th Infantry, 4th place, 56-pound weight throw (Boston Globe, July 4)

Musician D. Battles (“musician” would be his position, not his name), 24th Infantry, 2nd place, high jump (Boston Globe, July 4)

Pvt. Branch Russell, 25th Infantry, 2nd place, running hop, step, and jump (Boston Globe, July 4)

Pvt. R. Moore, 10th Cavalry, running as part of the Southern Department’s 440-yard relay team (which finished second; Boston Globe, July 4)

The black regiments from Arizona, infantry and cavalry, were competing as part of the Southern Department team, which won the meet by a large margin.  A good number of Army athletes, including three African-American sprinters, were sent to the Olympic trials.  One of the sprinters appeared in results as “R. Moore;” before I determined that “Moore” actually did go to the trials in Cambridge, Mass., later in July, I was briefly taken with the idea that Dobie Moore might have had a chance to go to the Olympics, but chose to play with the Monarchs instead.  It turned out to be one Richard Moore of Arkansas, who in fact did go to the trials (though he didn’t make the Olympic team).  Since his initial proved to be accurate, this soured my early suspicion that “N. Johnson” might be Oscar Johnson.

None of the black Army athletes made the Olympics, though one, Sgt. Ezekiel Carolina, winner of the 56-pound-weight throw at the Army meet, was said by the Chicago Defender to be “a certain selection for the Olympic team” (July 10, 1920).  Instead, as the Defender put it (corroborated by several other sources), “he does not want to make the trip [to Cambridge] and would like to be excused.”  In fact, the man who finished second to him in St. Louis, a Lt. E. R. Roberts, went to the trials, finished fifth, and made the Olympic team (the U.S. sent six athletes for each event).  Carolina had beaten him by more than three feet in St. Louis.

Although he won both the running broad jump and the running hop, step, and jump in St. Louis, I couldn’t find any mention of “Sgt. M. Herring” at the Cambridge trials, though only the top five finishers in those events were listed in the papers I checked.  If he is the St. Louis Giants’ Herring, the trials, held on July 17 and 18, would have conflicted with his appearance in Giants’ games at St. Louis on those dates.  Could Herring have chosen a professional baseball career over a chance to go to the Olympics?  If so, he may have regretted it, since he only played for the Giants for one year, and never appeared in a Negro League game after 1920.  (His distances at the Army meet, however, were well behind the fifth-place finishers in both events at the trials.)  Going back to the Army meet, it seems to have taken place on July 2, 3, and 5; the last date would conflict with Herring’s second appearance for the Giants.  (Interestingly, however, he came into that game late, replacing Eddie Holtz at third base.)

Tomorrow: the final installment (for now) of my research into this possible new story about how some Army players joined the Negro Leagues.