A quick rundown on Grant “Home Run” Johnson’s credentials as a great player and manager and significant historical figure:
• On October 7, 1893, Johnson, having just turned 21, hit two home runs off Tony Mullane to lead his hometown Findlay, Ohio, club to a 5 to 4 win over the Cincinnati Reds.
•Hit 60 home runs for the independent professional Findlays in 1894, earning the sobriquet “Home Run Johnson.”
•With Bud Fowler co-founded the Page Fence Giants of Adrian, Michigan, in 1895. From that year through 1912, Johnson would serve as captain and field manager of nearly every team he played for, excepting only the 1905 Philadelphia Giants and the 1911 Chicago Giants.
•Captained at least five teams that claimed the colored world’s championship, and played for at least three more.
•Captained pennant-winning Habana teams in the Cuban League during the 1908/09 and 1911/12 winter seasons.
•Played for three of the greatest African American teams in history: the 1905 Philadelphia Giants, the 1910 Leland Giants of Chicago, and the 1913 Lincoln Giants of New York.
•Wrote chapter on the “Art and Science of Hitting” for Sol White’s Official Base Ball Guide (1907).
•Batted .412 against the Detroit Tigers in Cuba in the fall of 1910, as Ty Cobb hit .350. Against major league teams in Cuba from 1908 to 1910, Johnson batted .281 in 17 games, for a 164 OPS+.
•Hit .336 in 184 “Negro league” games (against black professional competition) for an OPS+ of 170.
•Hit Cuban pitching for a .291 average in 191 games played under very low-offense conditions for a 167 OPS+.
•Of the 392 games compiled for these stats, 350 (89%) were played after Johnson turned 33 years old.
Home Run Johnson was certainly the best black ballplayer between Frank Grant and the emergence of John Henry Lloyd in the late 1900s. It’s also worth pointing out that he was perhaps the first great African American professional who never appeared in “organized baseball.” Before him Frank Grant, George Stovey, Sol White, Robert Higgins, and Bud Fowler all played in otherwise all- or mostly white minor leagues (and the Walker brothers appeared briefly in the majors). Beginning with Johnson, however, several generations of the best African American baseball talent, from Rube Foster and Pete Hill all the way down to Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard, would be locked out. Grant Johnson was, in a sense, the first of the Negro leaguers.
P.S. Please consider donating to help fund Home Run Johnson’s grave marker and plaque.
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