String Bean Williams

I’ve written about Andrew “String Bean” Williams before. A kind of prototype for Satchel Paige—a tall, skinny, right-handed pitcher who exploited his supposedly advanced age for publicity—Williams was a well-known player who moved constantly from team to team in the 1910s and 1920s. In the latter decade, nearly every mention of him also includes a claim that he is nearing fifty, or over fifty, or at any rate extremely old for a ballplayer.

He first appears in the historical record, as far as I can tell, as a utility man for the West Baden Sprudels in 1909. He’s referred to as “Skinny” (or “Skinney”) Williams. He pitched and played shortstop for the Sprudels, and lived in Cairo, Illinois:

(Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1909, p. 7)

 

Nobody named Andrew Williams can be found in the 1910 census in or about Cairo, although it was taken in April, after baseball season had already started, so it’s possible Williams was already gone. A fairly large number of ballplayers can’t be found in the 1910 census (the Leland Giants, for example, were traveling in Texas during that month). At least two black men named Andrew Williams lived in Cairo in the 1900 census, but that is a decade before String Bean can be reliably identified, and neither can be linked to him, although they remain leads for future research.

It’s also possible that “Skinny Williams” is not String Bean, as a Skinny Williams is also mentioned in the Freeman playing for the Kansas City Royal Giants in 1911, when String Bean was with the ABCs. If Skinny is someone else, then String Bean would enter the historical record in 1910 with the French Lick Plutos. At one point he was called the “Alabama Wonder,” further confusing the question of his origins:

(Indianapolis Star, April 12, 1910, p. 35)

 

Over his whole career String Bean was roughly an average blackball pitcher, going 73-71 in games we’ve recovered against top line black teams from 1910 through 1925, with an OPS+ of exactly 100. He reached his peak in roughly 1916-1920, when he won 41 games against 27 losses for the Royal Giants, Indianapolis ABCs, American Giants, Bacharach Giants, and other teams. He could, like many Negro league pitchers, hit some. He threw “big, sharp curves,” according to a writer in 1914 (Indianapolis Ledger, July 4, 1914, p. 4); almost two decades later Jimmy Powers, the New York Daily News columnist who was also a rare early white supporter of integrating baseball, praised String Bean as a “tricky curve ball artist” (April 7, 1933, p. 65).

There are very few sustained passages of writing about him, and it can be difficult to piece together a sentence here, a phrase there, into a coherent picture of what he was like. He could be exuberant; at a key point in a 1914 game, “Mr. Williams, alias ‘String Beans’, the all too untaciturn ge’men from [West Baden] Springs, flushed over his seeming victory, was fairly shouting on the mound…” (Indianapolis Ledger, May 23, 1914, p. 4). He was nicknamed “Legs,” and “Unpossible.”

In the spring of 1916 he accompanied the Chicago American Giants to Havana, where they took up the remaining Cuban League schedule of the San Francisco Park club. Williams split six decisions for a team that went 5-9. On April 17, 1916, one Andrew Williams, aged 43, accompanied by his wife Louisa and their year-old daughter Pearl, arrived at New Orleans from Havana. On the same passenger list page can be found String Bean’s teammates Jesse Barber (spelled “Balbour”) and Frank Wickware.

Williams started 1919 as player-manager of the Dayton Marcos. When an article appeared in the local paper noting how the owner John Matthews had been getting much praise recently for the successes of his club, a reader wrote in to protest that credit ought to be given to “Stringbean Williams, who is the real brains and manager as well as star twirler of the Marco club.” It was Williams, the letter writer asserted, who was the “prime factor” in the rise of the Marcos (Dayton Herald, June 26 and June 29, 1919).

Later in the season Williams was signed away by the American Giants, where he remained effective (5-2 against black teams), although there were signs of trouble. At one point during a game “he stalled Rube [Foster] into thinking he had a sore thumb. Rube knew what the trouble was and let him get away with it”—the implication being that String Bean was pitching while drunk (Chicago Defender, August 30, 1919).

(New York Age, July 10, 1920, p. 7)

In 1925 Ben Taylor called him “a real veteran in point of service, being second only to ‘Cyclone’ Joe Williams. They are two of the oldest pitchers in the Eastern loop” (Baltimore Afro-American, January 31, 1925, p. A7). Upon his release by the Bacharach Giants in April 1925, the Harrisburg Telegraph wrote that “Williams, who is nearly fifty years old, plans to retire from the diamond after a career extending over the past two decades. He is probably the oldest pitcher in colored baseball ranks” (April 11, 1925, p. 13).

In 1927 W. Rollo Wilson passed along (or spun himself) this tall tale about String Bean in the Spanish-American War:

(Pittsburgh Courier, April 30, 1927, p. 18)

 

The only other black ballplayer who is supposed to have served in the Spanish-American War (that I remember anyway) was C. I. Taylor.

When Williams joined Syd Pollock’s Havana Red Sox in 1928, playing alongside Cuban teammates, the Utica Observer-Dispatch (perhaps drawing on Pollock’s PR copy) claimed that he spoke “the Cuban language” (May 18, 1928, p. 34). By that September String Bean was in New York City, where Chappy Gardner wrote this about him:

(Pittsburgh Courier, September 8, 1928, p. 14)

 

Sadly, as far as I know Gardner never followed up on his suggestion that he could write a history of String Bean's career.

I have tended to assume the age thing was a schtick, much like Satchel or Pop Watkins—that Williams was probably younger than the claims made for him, possibly by a lot. Normally when a ballplayer, even a player in the fringe world of the blackball circuit, first arrives on the scene, he’s probably in his twenties, very likely in his mid-twenties or younger. So I have vaguely thought that he was probably born somewhere from 1885 to 1890 or so, give or take. The only problem is that, for someone who is so easily traced over nearly two decades (from 1909 to 1929), drawing commentary from writers such as Sol White, Chappy Gardner, Lloyd Thompson, and Ben Taylor, Williams is very difficult to find in any sort of official document. In fact, with the exception of the 1916 passenger list above (which is perhaps arguable), I had never found him at all, until just the other day.

To set it up: the last sighting I had of Williams alive was a Sol White column in 1929:

“String Beans Williams, noted pitcher and baseball authority, will have the grounds [Catholic Protectory Oval] in first-class shape, he having been engaged by Jimmie [Keenan] to look after the field—another commendable trait in the sportsmanship of the Lincolns’ owner.” (New York Amsterdam News, 22 May 1929, p. 9.)

Then…nothing. Until a couple of years later, when Ben Taylor, recounting a 1917 game between the ABCs and American Giants, String Bean Williams vs. Dick Redding. “Williams,” he notes, “is now dead” (Baltimore Afro-American, Feb 28, 1931, p. 14). In 1933 the New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Powers also noted Williams’s death.

Looking through New York City deaths from May 1929 through February 1931, I eventually obtained the death certificate for Andrew Williams, black, “Ball Player,” who died at the age of 56 on October 28, 1929, in the Bronx. He was married to Maggie Williams (rather than Louisa, as in the passenger list).

His age here matches the 1916 passenger list. If the death certificate and the 1916 passenger list are correct, he started his career in fast company at the age of 36 or 37, and continued to perform at the top level of black professional baseball until he was 52. (And he would have been old enough to participate in the Spanish-American War.)

Suffering from tuberculosis, Williams died of a collapsed lung (pneumothorax)—a condition that very tall, thin people are particularly at risk for. He was buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery in East Elmhurst (Queens).

Comments

[Alex Smith]

Also of note to readers (i know you've mentioned before since you have clipped on newspapers.com) is Dismukes ranking him the 8th best pitcher he ever saw.

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/26391688/pittsburgh_courier1930215p14/

[JohnR]

New York Amsterdam News (October 30, 1929)
Obituary
Williams, Andrew (String Beans), of 14 Sickle street, Bronx, died Oct. 28, 1929, in Morrisania Hospital, with sudden attack of pneumonia, aged 57. He was one of the greatest colored pitchers that has ever been in baseball. Funeral services Friday, 2 o'clock, from Fred Williams, undertakers, 249 West 128th street.

[Gary Ashwill]

Kim, that's a great find--I don't think I'd seen it before. As you said, I see H. P. Warmack and other players on the same page. It looks to me like Williams's age is 37 (that's also how it's transcribed on Ancestry.com)...which would match with the death certificate & 1916 passenger list.

[Gary Ashwill]

JohnR--yeah, I saw Frank R. Steward mentioned a few places (e.g. he was sent to the Philippines as an officer in 1899) and I found at least one mention of an Andrew Williams in a black Spanish-American War unit. Military records aren't my strong suit, really, but I'll keep looking.

[kim agan]

Andrew Williams shows up on the 1910 French Lick Indiana census, living in employee housing of French Lick Springs Hotel, along with the rest of the 1910 Plutos team. The census shows he was born in Kentucky (further adding to the "Alabama Wonder" mystery) & was 31 years old.

[JohnR]

Hi Gary,
I remember trying to track Andrew Williams down awhile back and got just as far as you did (his death is actually noted in one of the major black newspapers). I even contacted the cemetery to see if they had any additional information (they did not). One strange thing is that, if you look up Captain Frank R. Steward as a Spanish-American War veteran, he exists and so do, if I remember correctly 3 Andrew Williams. If Williams did serve in the 1898 conflict, he was probably as old as was claimed; and perhaps his birth info could be tracked down through military records (like Dobie Moore's info). One other thing, Andrew Williams lies in an unmarked grave. Perhaps the funds could be raised for a headstone.