York Colored Monarchs

 

In 1889 the Cuban Giants and the Colored Gorhams, the two most famous professional black baseball teams in the United States, joined the otherwise all-white Middle States League. The Cuban Giants competed for the pennant, which they barely lost to Harrisburg after some very questionable decisions by the league at season’s end. The following year a white promoter named James Monroe Kreiter signed most of the Cuban Giants away for a new team representing York. Kreiter’s club was called the Colored Monarchs, and it played in the Eastern Interstate League, a new circuit that replaced the Middle States League.

The team that had won the Middle States pennant in 1889, the Harrisburg Ponies, signed two of the Cuban Giants for 1890, Frank Grant and Clarence Williams. The Monarchs, however, still had future Hall of Famer Sol White as well as George Williams, Arthur Thomas, and William Selden. Each of these four finished in the top eight in batting average, Williams and Thomas finished 1-2 in slugging percentage, and the team proceeded to run away with the pennant. The Ponies were their only viable challenger. In July, however, Harrisburg jumped the league to join the Atlantic Association. The remainder of the Interstate League, with the York Monarchs way in front, voted to disband—a move, many have suspected, that was intended to prevent a black team from winning the championship.

There is but one well-known image of the York Colored Monarchs (above): drawings of ten players plus Kreiter, which ran in newspapers at the time, and has been reproduced in various places in recent decades.

Well, as it turns out, these drawings were based on a team photograph of the Monarchs. Kevin Pope has sent me images of the photograph, which currently resides in a private collection (not Kevin’s). This is one of the most amazing images I’ve seen in a long time. It may be that it is already known to some of you out there, but when I first saw it I was dumbfounded.

(Kevin photographed the image under less-than-ideal circumstances, resulting in a reflection obscuring the face of William Selden. But he provided another image that shows Selden—see below.)

Standing, L to R: Abe Harrison, William Malone, George Williams, Sol White, Arthur Thomas
Seated, middle: J. Monroe Kreiter
Seated, front row, L to R: William Whyte, Ben Boyd, Jack Frye, William Jackson, William Selden

 

Here are details of the various players, including Selden:

 

 ABE HARRISON

Abe Harrison (1867-1932) played for the Philadelphia Orions and the Argyle Hotel team before joining the Cuban Giants, for whom he played into the late 1890s. A talented infielder and on-field comedian, he was known as the “minstrel man short stop” (Trenton Evening Times, October 13, 1897, p. 8). He batted .255 with 25 stolen bases for York in 1890. I believe this is the first photograph of Harrison I’ve ever seen.

 

WILLIAM MALONE

William H. Malone (1868-1917) first played professionally for the Philadelphia Pythians of the National Colored League in 1887 before joining the Cuban Giants in 1888 and 1889, the York Monarchs in 1890, the Big Gorhams in 1891, and the Page Fence Giants in 1895. For the Monarchs he went 13-5 with a 2.74 ERA.

 

GEORGE WILLIAMS

George L. Williams (1864-1918) played for the Washington Manhattans and Philadelphia Orions before joining the Cuban Giants in 1885. The following year he became their captain. Before the 1887 season he was approached by both the Minneapolis Millers of the Northwestern League and the Oswego Starchboxes of the International League, but turned them down to remain with the Cuban Giants through the 1889 season (“Base Ball Gossip,” Trenton Evening Times, February 1, 1887, 1). Like many of his teammates he moved to the York Monarchs in 1890, where he captained the team, won the batting title with a .386 average, and led the league with a .582 slugging percentage. He spent 1891 with the Big Gorhams, then in 1892 joined the Philadelphia police department. He left briefly in 1905 and 1906 to organize the Wilmington Giants, but quickly returned to the force, becoming its first black detective in 1909. He was “noted for his daring,” and also for his generosity: every Christmas he organized food and gift drives for poor black families. In 1918 he was shot and killed in the line of duty (“Detective Slain Battling Thugs—George L. Williams, Former Cuban Giants Baseball Player, Is Shot,” Philadelphia Inquirer, January 10, 1918, 6).

 

SOL WHITE

Sol White probably needs no introduction to readers of this blog. His career as a professional ballplayer, manager, and coach, in black leagues, white minor leagues, for black independent teams, and in Cuba, has been very well-chronicled. He was the co-founder and manager of two of the most famous teams in black baseball history, the Philadelphia Giants and the New York Lincoln Giants, and wrote the first (and for many years only) book about African American professional baseball. For York in 1890 he hit .350 (third in the league), slugged .457, stole 21 bases, and finished second in the league with 74 runs scored. In 2006 he was very deservedly elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

 

ARTHUR THOMAS

Arthur Thomas (1864-1895) first caught for the Manhattan Base Ball Club of Washington, D. C., at the age of 15 in 1880. He joined the West End club of Long Branch, New Jersey, in 1881 and 1882, and in 1883 rejoined the Manhattans under S. K. Govern before moving with Govern to the Cuban Giants in 1885. He was described as “a good general player, a good batsman, fair base runner, and excellent throw to the bases” (“Good Game Promised,” Trenton Evening Times, May 9, 1886, p. 8). Sol White later said of Thomas:

He was 6 feet 4 inches in height; his arms almost reached his knees; he was sorta [sic] sway-backed and gangled-legged [sic]; he had a moaning voice and actually would cry when his team lost a game. His facial expressions were paradoxical; when he laughed you would have to look twice to see whether he was crying. An extremely hard worker, he ruled the roost including the captain. Thomas was a great receiver behind the bat. With his long arms he would reach out and grab wild pitches and when the ball left his hand for second base it looked like a long snake. (“Sol White Recalls,” New York Age, December 27, 1930, 6)

With the York Monarchs in 1890, Thomas hit .333 and led the league with 26 doubles and 11 triples, and finished second to his teammate George Williams in slugging percentage with .567. After leaving big-time baseball Thomas settled in Trenton, New Jersey, where he caught for and captained both black and white semipro teams. He died in Trenton of consumption (tuberculosis) at the age of 30 on August 8, 1895 (“Died,” Trenton Evening Times, August 11, 1895, 5; “Observations from the Grandstand,” Trenton Evening Times, August 9, 1896, 3).

 

J. MONROE KREITER

A member of a prominent Harrisburg family, James Monroe Kreiter, Jr. (1856-1911) was a ballplayer in his youth. He later managed Harrisburg’s Eastern League entry before founding the York Monarchs in 1890. His real job was as a printer for the Harrisburg Patriot newspaper, and he became active in the typographical union as well as local politics. He eventually secured a position as the U.S. government’s chief printer in Panama.

 

WILLIAM WHYTE

William T. Whyte (1860-1936) served as pitcher and outfielder for the St. Louis Black Stockings and Boston Resolutes before joining the Cuban Giants in 1885. He stayed with them through 1893, except for his year with the York Monarchs, where he went 11-5 with a 3.02 ERA, batted .302, and slugged .453. He retired to Trenton, New Jersey.

 

BEN BOYD

Benjamin F. Boyd (1858-?) was a veteran of the original Cuban Giants. He was born in Maryland in 1858, and started his baseball career in Washington, D. C., in 1874. “A good general player” and versatile infielder, he joined S. K. Govern’s Manhattan Base Ball Club in 1883, and played for the Cuban Giants (1885-1889), the York Monarchs (1890), and Big Gorhams (1891). He batted just .267 for the Monarchs, with a lone double as his only extra base hit.

 

JACK FRYE

John H. Frye (1864-1904) was the fifth known African American to play in organized baseball in the United States, appearing briefly for the Reading Actives of the Interstate Association late in the 1883 season. He came to the Actives from the Renovo, Pennsylvania, club, where he had caught for Patrick Friel, the team’s star pitcher. Friel moved to the Reading club, and a few weeks later Frye was brought in to catch for him (“McCafferty Struck,” Reading Eagle, September 15, 1883, 1). Of the 20 other players on the Reading roster that year, 17 would eventually play in the major leagues, including Friel, who would make it as a veteran outfielder in 1890 and 1891. Frye also played for another white team, Lewiston of the 1886 Pennsylvania State Association, before joining the Cuban Giants, where he would spend most of his career. With York in 1890 he batted .303 with a .438 slugging percentage. He retired from baseball after the 1896 season and moved to Culpeper County, Virginia, where he died on June 10, 1904 (“Bits for the Fans,” Harrisburg Telegraph, June 11, 1904, 8).

 

WILL JACKSON

A left-handed catcher, Will Jackson was in his first season as a professional. In 46 games he batted .251 and stole 18 bases. In 1894, Jackson and George Stovey formed a “left-handed battery” for the Cuban Giants. By the late 1890s, when Jackson had graduated to captaining the Giants, he was more of an outfielder. So far, given the commonness of his name, I haven’t been able to track down any specific information about him.
.

WILLIAM SELDEN

Pitching for the Boston Resolutes of the National Colored League in 1887, William H. “Billy” Selden (1866-1926) won their only league game in Louisville, whereupon the team immediately went broke. Stranded, the players had to make their own way back to Boston. Selden, however, was signed by the Cuban Giants, and went on to a long career as a pitcher for black professional teams, including the Cuban Giants, Gorhams, and Cuban X-Giants. By the late 1890s he was spending the offseasons as a vaudeville performer. For York in 1890 he went 15-6, 2.63, with a league-second 100 strikeouts, and batted .330 with a .429 slugging percentage and 19 steals. Box score research shows him (so far) undefeated (11-0) against black professional teams in the 19th century. This is the first photograph I’ve seen of Selden.

 

 

 

Comments

[Tony Kissel]

Another important find for black baseball. The Cuban Giants reportedly had cabinet cards done one season down in Florida. Selden was quite a pitcher as was Billy Whyte. I have worked with Larry Lester and Wayne Stivers over the years to compile the stats of these ballplayers. Hopefully we will eventually obtain most of their career totals.

[Gary Ashwill]

Interesting question. I don't think there have been any recent overviews that take into account the flood of new research in the past 10 or 15 years. There are lots of good books on specific topics, but not on black baseball history as a whole. The closest might be Larry Hogan's Shades of Glory, which I think is 10-12 years old. (It came out of the Hall of Fame study.) The best one-volume introduction, IMO, is probably still Robert Peterson's Only the Ball Was White. But maybe others out there will have their own recommendations?

[Caleb Hardwick]

Off topic -- I'm looking for a book with an overview of black baseball history. Is there one you would recommend? Or maybe one on early black baseball and another for the post-1920 era?

Thanks,
Caleb