Walter Johnson vs. Los Angeles Giants, 1908

 

Bud Clark of the Los Angeles Giants (Los Angeles Herald, October 25, 1908, p. 24); Walter Johnson, shown in the uniform of the Kids of Weiser, an Idaho team, in 1906-07.

 

Nearly two years ago I wrote about Walter Johnson pitching against black teams. At the time, I mentioned three such games:

•October 15, 1911, Olympic Field, Harlem—Johnson, pitching for the “All-Leaguers” with Gabby Street catching, defeated the Lincoln Giants 5 to 3.

•October 5, 1913, Island Park, Schenectady—Johnson, pitching for the “All Americans” (a team of mostly minor leaguers), lost a five-inning game to Frank Wickware and Schenectady Mohawk Giants, 1 to 0.

•October 11, 1914, Lenox Oval, Harlem—Johnson, pitching for the NYC Fire Department “Smoke Eaters,” lost to Gunboat Thompson and the Lincoln Stars 2 to 0.

There was at least one more occasion on which Walter Johnson faced black opposition. This time it was on the west coast. On October 18, 1908, Johnson, pitching for the Olives, or Olive Giants, champions of Orange County, faced the little-heralded Los Angeles Giants at Joy Park. The Big Train was overpowering, striking out 20 Giants in 10 1/3 innings—but the Giants capitalized on six errors by Johnson’s teammates to send the game into extra innings, then pushed across a run in the bottom of the 11th to win, 6 to 5.

William McNeil reproduces a partial box score for this game in his book The California Winter League (on pp. 28-29). Today Todd Peterson sent me the original box score from the Los Angeles Herald, so I thought I’d post it:

 

(Los Angeles Herald, October 19, 1908, p. 7)

Here are the Los Angeles Giants:

(Los Angeles Herald, October 25, 1908, p. 24)

The Los Angeles Giants remain a truly obscure team. Their best-known player was probably a pitcher named Bud Clark, who also played for the Salt Lake City Occidentals around this time. In the Olives/L.A. Giants game Clark nearly matched Johnson, allowing only 2 hits in 8 innings and striking out 10 batters himself. Thus he became the first of (at least) three black pitchers to defeat Walter Johnson.

(Salt Lake Tribune, August 30, 1908, p. 18)

Comments

[Gary Ashwill]

Henry, thanks. By the way, I have a box score for the Jan. 30, 1910, game against the Occidentals (courtesy of Todd Peterson). Email me if you'd like to see it.

[Henry W. Thomas]

All of Johnson's appearances against black teams are listed with stats on p. 389 of my book. In the six games pitched, he went 44 innings, gave up 12 runs on 25 hits, walked 3, and struck out 70.

[Henry W. Thomas]

In my book, "Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train," I cover these games and also three more apparent instances of Johnson appearances against black teams. The best documented and significant of these took place on Jan. 30, 1910, in which Johnson pitched for the Santa Ana semi-pros against the "Occidentals," winning 3-0 and striking out 15. There is probably a box score of this game in the Santa Ana Register, as there was for most of their games, but I don't have access to my notes and can't provide the exact source. I also came across a game on June 9, 1907, in which Johnson's Weiser town team played the "Rastus Rufus" team, and he didn't pitch, but probably played. And on June 1, 1940 Johnson went to Thurmont, Maryland, and pitched an inning against a "colored" CCC team from Gettysburg, as part of Johnson's campaign for Congress that year. The 52 year-old Johnson gave up one hit and struck out two in his one inning, then umpired the rest of the game. As for the supposed Johnson-Williams matchup, I believe that story to be the result of confusing Williams's 1-0 victory over Grover Cleveland Alexander and Frank Wickware's 1-0 win over Walter Johnson, both of which took place the same day, October 5, 1913. One other interesting connection between Johnson and blacks is found in the book "Having Our Say, the Delany Sisters' First Hundred Years," by Sarah and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill. "Sadie and I loved Walter Johnson, a pitcher for the Washington team," they wrote. "If he was pitching in New York, we were there!" Finally, thank you for this site and all of your research and documentation of this aspect of baseball.