When I wrote about James Wilson of the 1887 National Colored League, the first known professional ballplayer born on the African continent, the most important source was a long article published in the Philadelphia Times on January 30, 1887 (p. 12), headlined “Black Ball Players.” There’s much of interest in this article, but the key paragraph with respect to Wilson was this one:
(Philadelphia Times, January 30, 1887, p. 12)
The connection between baseball and Lincoln University established here is really fruitful, as Lincoln University was quite small, and its catalogues, including lists of students, are available on the internet.
Looking at the Lincoln catalogues for the 1880s, we find a single student named Cummings: Harry S. Cummings of Baltimore, who received his A.B. degree in 1886. Here he is in the 1882-83 catalogue, listed as a freshman (p. 11):
In the same catalogue we can find James W. Wilson, who was awarded his A.B. in 1882, as well William J. Currey (of Norristown, Pa.) and John H. Paynter (of Washington, D.C.), listed among the seniors (on pages 16 and 10, respectively).
The rosters of the National Colored League clubs, as printed in The Sporting Life:
Here “Hugh S. Cummings” is listed with the Baltimore club, but in every other contemporary source the ballplayer is called “H. S. Cummings.” Given that the Philadelphia Times identifies Cummings, Will Curry, Johnny Painter, and Jim Wilson as Lincoln University students, and that the Lincoln University catalogues show Harry S. Cummings, William J. Currey, John H. Paynter, and James W. Wilson as members of a small student body in the 1880s, it would seem not to be too much of a leap to identify Hugh S. Cummings as Harry S. Cummings.
So who was he?
His full name was Harry Smythe Cummings. He was born on May 13, 1864 or 1866, in Baltimore, Maryland. After graduating from Lincoln in 1886, he joined the new Lord Baltimore club of the National Colored League as pitcher and manager.
The NCL, of course, did not last long, and Cummings entered the University of Maryland law school in the fall of 1887. After his graduation he was admitted to the bar and immediately started a career in Baltimore politics. In 1890 he became the first black city councilman in Baltimore history, serving in 1890-1892, 1897-1899, and 1905 until his death in 1917. He was a fixture of the local Republican Party. As a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1904, Cummings delivered a speech seconding the nomination of Teddy Roosevelt for President.
In coverage of Cummings’s later law and political career, no mention is made of his foray into professional baseball. But he maintained links to the sports world. He served as the personal lawyer to the lightweight boxer Joe Gans, the first African American boxing champion. In 1913 Cummings threw out the first pitch for a game between the Cuban Giants and the Brooklyn Royal Giants, played at Baltimore’s Oriole Park:
(The Afro-American Ledger, May 10, 1913, p. 8)
And the year after that, in response to an effort to make Sunday baseball legal in Baltimore, Cummings spoke out on the issue. Perhaps surprisingly, the old ballplayer was against Sunday baseball.
When Harry Cummings passed away (of “a complication of diseases”) at the young age of 51 in 1917, he was widely mourned in Baltimore as an accomplished lawyer and politician, and a pillar of the black community:
(Baltimore Afro-American, September 8, 1917, pp. 1 & 4)
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