Agate Type

burlin white & the boston world giants, 1942

Here is the World War II draft card for Burlin White, Bill Jackman’s longtime battery mate.  Check out the team he’s managing: the Boston World Giants (I’d guess some variation on the old “All-Nations” concept).  Dick Thompson was particularly delighted by this detail.

george h. wilson: “the whole show”

Todd Peterson, who’s working on a book for McFarland about the St. Paul Gophers and early black baseball in Minnesota, has written in about his research on George H. Wilson.  “Wilson,” Todd says, “was a tremendous pitcher and quite a flamboyant personality – the  ‘whole show’ as one paper called him.”  He “was part of a migration of Chicago players to Minnesota in the early 20th century and he pitched for several teams in the area, most notably the Waseca EACO’s, the Renville All-Stars and St. Cloud.” 

Todd has compiled the following chronology for Wilson (sources including Sol White; James Riley; Ancestry.com; and local newspapers):

George H. Wilson  P
Born July 1875, Michigan
1894                  Adrian (MI) Light Guard
1895                  Page Fence Giants
1895                  Adrian (MI) (Michigan State League)
1896-1898         Page Fence Giants
1899-1900         Chicago Columbia Giants
1900-1902         Waseca (MN) EACO’s
1903                 St. Cloud (MN)
1903                  Algona (IA) Brownies (late in season)
1904-1905         Chippewa Falls (WI)
1905                  Renville (MN) All Stars
1905                  Chicago Union Giants (late in season)
1906                  Sheboygan (MI)

There’s some question about whether the Sheboygan referred to in 1906 was the one in Michigan or the one in Wisconsin; a note in the Minneapolis Tribune (August 1906) about Wilson going home to pitch (he was from Michigan) led Todd to think it was in Michigan.  On the other hand, a couple of the references Joe Niese sent me about Wilson came from a Sheboygan, Wisconsin, paper, though they aren’t from 1906 and refer to Wilson playing for a team in Manitowoc, rather than Sheboygan.

It seems, from the material Joe sent me, that Todd can add 1906/07 Habana (Cuban League) and 1907-1909 Manitowoc (WI), Lake Shore League, to the list.

And Todd has sent me the following 1902 photo of George Wilson, in his Waseca EACO uniform (from the Minnesota Historical Society):

UPDATE 1/21/2008 1:13 p.m. David Skinner wrote in the following:

Hi Gary,

There is in fact no such place as Sheboygan, Michigan.  Frequently confused with Sheboygan, Wisconsin, however, is Cheboygan, Michigan, with a C.  Sheboygan is a small city of 50,000 plus which actually had minor league ball for a number of years in the 40s.  Cheboygan, on the other hand, is a VERY small town of under 5,000 and of course never had pro ball.  My definition of a very small town is one smaller than my beloved Bisbee, which has OVER 5,000 brave souls.  None of this has any bearing on George Wilson, who could well have played on a town team, which undoubtedly Cheboygan, like seemingly every other Midwest small town, had.

Best,
David

David also had high praise for Todd’s presentation on the St. Paul Gophers at the SABR national convention last summer.

And he sent a brief correction to his first message:

My bad.  Both Bisbee and Cheboygan have grown and gotten ahead of me. I checked the actual 2000 census figures and Sheboygan is still over 50,000, while Cheboygan has climbed over 5,000. But not to be outdone, Bisbee soared to over 6,000 (you'd hardly notice) and remained over 1,000 bigger, leaving Cheboygan as I said a very small town.

luis padrón in poughkeepsie, 1906

Thanks to David Skinner for sending along this fantastic image of Luis Padrón in his Poughkeepsie uniform, 1906—posed as a righthanded batter, of course!

padrón, throwing righthanded

For two or three years I’ve been trying to figure out whether or not Luis Padrón batted or threw lefthanded, as the reference books say he did.  It’s absolutely clear that Juan Padrón was a lefty; but I’ve yet to see a contemporary reference to Luis Padrón that confirms his lefthandedness, whether in Cuban or U.S. newspapers.  In the 1900s and 1910s, lefthanded pitchers, particularly those who received a fair amount of newspaper coverage, were almost always singled out at some point as southpaws; the fact that I’ve never seen this in Padrón’s case is pretty suggestive, as is his frequent play at second and third base.  Scott Simkus, who has also investigated Padrón’s U.S career, has told me he thinks “the odds are 95% he was righty/righty.”

Now we are indebted to César López, who has provided this photograph, from a 1917 number of Carteles magazine, of Luis Padrón in a right-handed pitching stance, glove on his left hand, ball in his right.

It’s true that there are no cues here that would absolutely prove that the photo wasn’t accidentally reversed: the team name printed on the uniform would be the most convenient.  I’m pretty sure it was not (Luis Padrón was a well-known player), but you never know.

If you haven’t already, check out the photo in this post of Padrón posing as a right-handed batter.

george h. wilson

Joe Niese has written in to correct the identity of pitcher/outfielder “Wilson” of the 1906/07 Habana club in the Cuban League.  This player is identified by Jorge Figueredo as the Negro Leaguer Ray Wilson, who came to Cuba with the Cuban X Giants in 1903, 1904, and 1905 (this is verified by passenger manifests).  I just followed Figueredo in assuming the Habana player in 1906/07 was Ray Wilson. 

But Ray Wilson was a first baseman in Cuba, and didn't pitch at all in his previous visits. Meanwhile, I ignored the fact that Roberto González Echevarría calls this player “George Wilson,” mostly because he goes on to speculate that was really former Boston Americans pitcher George Prentiss, who played under the name “George Wilson” in 1901 (The Pride of Havana, p. 127).  More importantly, I completely overlooked James Riley’s entry on the turn-of-the-century lefthanded pitcher George H. Wilson, who had pitched for the integrated Adrian club in the 1895 Michigan State League, reportedly going 29-4 (one teammate being Grant “Home Run” Johnson).  Riley comments that Wilson “pitched with the Havana team in the Cuban winter league in 1907” (p. 863).

While researching Wilson’s time with white clubs in Wisconsin in the mid- to late 1900s, Joe Niese came up with this, from the Racine Daily Journal (September 9, 1907):

“Though the baseball season in the Lake Shore League will not be finished until October, overtures are already being made here by the Havana team of the Cuban league for George Wilson, the colored twirler who has pitched such sensational ball for the Manitowoc team.  Wilson pitched Havana into being a contender for the pennant in the Cuban league last winter, winning over two-thirds of his games and the management there is again desirous of securing the dusky slugger.  Wilson, however will decline the offer of the Havana team even though the figure set for his salary is $500 per month, since he finds that arm will not stand a winter and summer pitching siege.”

I checked in Cuban newspapers, and while I didn't find Wilson's first name or any very specific information about him, I did find an indication in Diario de la Marina (February 8, 1907) that he was brought to Cuba on the recommendation of “Johnson,” presumably his teammate Chappie Johnson (Wilson arrived several weeks after the season had started).  Chappie Johnson and George H. Wilson played together for several years on the Page Fence Giants, Columbia Giants, and Chicago Union Giants, whereas Chappie Johnson and Ray Wilson had never been teammates (to my knowledge) up to 1907.  Ray Wilson was an east coast player, Chappie Johnson and George Wilson were both midwestern players.  So I see much better reason for thinking the Habana player is in fact George H. Wilson rather than Ray Wilson, absent any evidence to the contrary.  So I’ve corrected my 1906/07 Cuban League stats to reflect this change.  This would mean that two pitchers on the 1906/07 Habana club, Wilson and George McQuillan, are wrongly identified in Figueredo.

Available passenger manifests, by the way, do not show any known player named Wilson returning to the U.S. that spring, so no help there.  (His teammates McQuillan and Johnson can't be found, either.)

Joe Niese also found that Habana or some other Cuban outfit made overtures to Wilson in the fall of 1908.  According to the Sheboygan Daily Press (September 14, 1908), “George Wilson will leave Manitowoc in a few days for Cuba where it is expected he will sign with some Cuban team.  It is not certain whether he will return to Manitowoc next summer.”  The same paper would refer the following spring (May 20, 1909) to “Wilson[,] who went to Cuba last fall to play with Havana.”  Wilson didn’t play in the Havana-based Cuban League that fall or winter, but it’s possible he performed in the Las Villas championship, or some other provincial league.

In the Indianapolis Freeman, February 24, 1917, Dave Wyatt compiles a list of 38 black ballplayers who had died within the past ten years, including three we’ve discussed here (Bill Monroe, Bill Lindsay, and John Chenault).  He includes the cause of death (tuberculosis for Monroe and Lindsay, heart failure for Chenault) and the place of death (he mistakenly gives Kansas City for Lindsay, though he’s correct on the other two), but not the date.

Appearing consecutively are:
R. Wilson—Insanity, Cuban X Giants, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
George Wilson—Insanity, Page Fence Giants, Palmyra, Michigan.

Yes, Wyatt lists “insanity” as the cause of death for both men.  Here’s an interesting discussion of what that might mean (which would depend on Wyatt’s sources, of course; he would most likely have been relying on newspaper reports, which presumably would have often been less precise than a medical examiner’s report or death certificate).

dick thompson on bill jackman

Check out this thread at Baseball Fever that compiles Dick Thompson’s postings there on Bill Jackman.

more about jackman

Here is another article Dick Thompson had sent to me in December regarding Bill Jackman.  This one is from the Newport (R.I.) Daily News, 14 July 1971:

jackman in cuba?

Here are two articles about Bill Jackman sent to me by Dick Thompson on December 27, both of which suggest that Jackman spent some time in Cuba.  Dick had found several references to the Philadelphia Colored Giants traveling to Cuba in the 1920s, though nothing very specific, and he was very interested in finding out whether such a trip really happened.

The first article is from the Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald.  The date’s blurry, but it looks like September 15, 1945 1943, to me (internal evidence, including Jackman’s age as reported in the piece, seems to indicate that it might be 1945 1943).  In this one we read that John McGraw “once flirted with the idea of sending Jackman to Cuba and importing him as a Cuban hurler.”

The second is also from the Portsmouth Herald ( July 9, 1948).  Now Jackman is said to have actually gone to Cuba and spent an entire winter season there, following which the Senators, believing he was Cuban, nearly signed him:

I’ll be looking into these stories during the coming year.  If anybody happens to know anything about Jackman or his team in Cuba (or about Jackman’s supposed close brush with the Senators and/or McGraw), drop me a line.

r.i.p. dick thompson

Sad, shocking news: Dick Thompson, baseball historian and researcher, passed away unexpectedly on January 2.

Along with many articles, Dick wrote The Ferrell Brothers of Baseball (McFarland, 2005).  He was a winner of SABR’s highest honor, the Bob Davids Award. His most recent project was on New England black baseball, especially the great pitcher Cannonball Bill Jackman, who labored mostly outside the organized Negro Leagues.  On December 13 Dick wrote:

Still plugging away on Jackman.  I now have about 230 wins in the database.  The goal for 2008 is to get over 300.  I also am just about at 3,000 recorded strikeouts.  I was originally thinking he may have had 8,000 career but now think 10,000 is possible.  No way I will be able to document that though, but I do think it feasible.

On December 27 he sent me some clippings on Jackman to post here; I’ll be putting them up over the weekend.  In the meantime here is a link to the biographies he wrote for SABR’s Baseball Biography Project; and here’s a thread devoted to Dick at Baseball Fever.

frank grant: the novel

If you haven’t, you should check out this essay by John Thorn on Frank Grant, probably the best African-American player of the nineteenth century.  See especially how Grant served as the model for a character in an 1895 novel by a childhood acquaintance, a novel that, strangely, predicted the 1901 “Chief Tokohama” incident involving not Frank, but Charlie Grant.