Agate Type

the baseball funster

Courtesy of Bill Mullins, here’s some more about the “Baseball Funster,” Elias Bryant, a.k.a. “Circus Country Brown,” or just “Country Brown.”

First: it turns out that Bryant was also a basketball clown:

(Rome, New York, Daily Sentinel, December 6, 1935, p. 2)

How much of this he did I don’t know—just about everything else I’ve seen is just about his baseball career.

Next, a great action shot of Bryant’s on-field comedy act:

(Syracuse Journal, July 20, 1933, p. 21)

That’s Chappie Johnson (manager of the opposing team) standing, Bryant sprawled on the ground, and a random kid from the crowd throwing water on Bryant. In case the caption doesn’t enlarge enough to read, here’s what it says:

“Circus Country Brown, the comedian with the Brooklyn Royal Giants, claimants of the world’s champion negro baseball team, gave the spectators at the game between the Giants and Chappie Johnson’s Negro All-Stars plenty of laughs yesterday at Long Branch [Park].

“Brown shot craps, pretended shaving himself with a two-foot razor, gave a talk on the telephone and also did a boxing act all by himself in which he delivered a knockout blow on his chin which made him fall in a heap on the ground. All this occurred on the first base line.

“In the picture is shown a young boy throwing a glass of water on Brown as he is on the ground. This was not part of the act, but some of the Chappies who knew that Brown was going to fall flat on his back gave the youngster a cup of water and told him to throw it on Brown. The comedian took it good-naturedly and made it appear as if he did not mind it. Brown’s antics pleased the crowd immensely.”

A few years later, Bryant took another fall, but this time he didn’t get up. I probably shouldn’t have referred so glibly to his “murder” the other day. The New York Age put a more detailed account of his death on its front page:

(New York Age, January 1, 1938, p. 1)

If there is any truth in this, it does seem that the death was more accidental than not. It appears likely that Terrell may not have spent much (if any) time in jail; just four months later he was married (to one Estelle Taylor):

(New York Age, April 16, 1938, p. 5)

This couple can be seen in the 1940 census, living on West 134th Street in Harlem (with six-month-old twins, a boy and a girl).  The fact that Terrell was married so soon after the incident in which Bryant died confirms that Terrill was the brother of Bryant’s wife (rather than being married to a sister of Bryant), meaning that Edna Bryant’s maiden name was Terrell.

In the same census, on West 130th Street , resides Edna Bryant, “Negro,” widowed, 41, born in Georgia. Unfortunately her occupation isn’t given, though she was evidently accepting lodgers.

Edna may have been Bryant’s second wife. In a Georgia Deaths database I was able to find a record for an African American woman named Stately Bryant, whose husband was named Elias Bryant. Stately passed away on January 12, 1921, in Atlanta, Georgia—where Bryant the ballplayer had recently been attending Morris Brown College.

elias bryant

(Warren PA Times-Mirror, June 18, 1930, p. 11)

Back in 2008 I wrote about the murder of Elias Bryant, who played baseball under the name of “Circus Country Brown” and was known for his on-field comedy act. In 2010, I posted his death certificate—which, incidentally, showed that he was buried in Frederick Douglass Cemetery on Staten Island, the same cemetery where Sol White was buried (and where a new headstone for White was dedicated a couple of weeks ago). I understand that the Negro Leagues Grave Marker Project is now focusing on getting a headstone for Bryant.

As I noted at the time, the death certificate didn’t give any specific information about Bryant’s birth date. However: as JR pointed out in the comments last week, the Puerto Rico passenger list from 1925 that showed the combined team of Lincoln Giants and Royal Giants travelling to San Juan included one Elias Brown, born March 28, 1896, Atlanta, Georgia.

There’s a possible connection in the 1900 census, where an African American child named Elias Bryant, born March 1899 in Georgia, is residing with his family in Gainesville, Hall County, Georgia:

One big problem is that the parents of this Elias Bryant are named Elias and Emma, whereas the ballplayer’s death certificate says his parents were named Henry Bryant and Louisa Gant. So despite the coincidence of the birth month (March) with the 1925 passenger list, this is not 100 percent certain to be Elias Bryant the ballplayer.

A couple of other interesting items related to Brown/Bryant. In the April 17, 1920, New York Age we’re given this list of Atlantic City Bacharach Giants players coming north from spring training:

(New York Age, April 17, 1920, p. 7)

(Yes, it’s that Home Run Johnson.) “Fielder Brown” from Morris Brown College is, I believe, our Country Brown. Not sure why he’s going by the name “Fielder Brown,” unless it was a middle name or maybe an early nom de guerre before he settled on Elias Brown. (“Brown,”by the way, could be a reference to his alma mater.) At any rate, Elias Bryant appears in the 1920 Atlantic City directory with “Ball Player” given as his occupation:

He appears in the 1921 directory at the same address, still “Ball Player,” but not in the directory for 1922—when he joined the Bacharachs team that moved to New York City.

In the late 1920s and 1930s, when he played for Nat Strong’s Royal Giants as they barnstormed through Pennsylvania, upstate New York, and elsewhere, he was commonly billed as a vaudeville artist, which I used to think was just a reference to his baseball comedy—but I’ve found a few articles claiming that he did actually perform on stage during the off season. (James Riley says Brown’s wife was an actress.) A note in the Franklin, Pennsylvania, News-Herald puts him with the Keith Circuit in 1930:

(Franklin News-Herald, June 17, 1930, p. 13)

Brown also sometimes liked to exaggerate his age, a common publicity ploy among Negro league players. In 1934, for example, when he was at most 38 years old, he was reported several times to be 48.

Lastly, how about a sample of Bryant's humor. Here’s a story told by his manager Dick Redding in 1934:

(Syracuse Journal, June 22, 1934, p. 32)

Here’s another from the Harrisburg Telegraph in 1927:

(Harrisburg Telegraph, June 28, 1927, p. 12)

UPDATE 5/29/2014 Edited to add a couple of additional items.

UPDATE 5/30/2014 According to his death certificate Bryant was not on the vaudeville circuit during that off season, but rather working for the WPA. But he was still playing ball in 1937, the summer before his death. His last team was the New York Colored Stars, a barnstorming outfit managed by Bunny Downs and starring Brown, Nip Winters, and Arvell Riggins.

(Warren, Pennsylvania, Times Mirror, August 7, 1937, p. 2)

UPDATE 6/4/2014 The latest on Elias Bryant.

the death of country brown, part two

Some time back I wrote about the case of longtime outfielder and baseball comedian Elias “Country” Brown, whose real name was apparently Elias Bryant, and how he was murdered by his brother-in-law in the course of an argument on Christmas Day, 1937.  I’ve obtained his death certificate, and it confirms that Elias Bryant was the victim of a “homicidal assault” on that date; but it adds virtually no information about him otherwise, aside from a purported age of 37 at the time of death, and the fact that he had worked for the WPA for about a year.  We also learn that he was buried in the Frederick Douglass Cemetery on Staten Island.

 

the death of country brown

Sorry, another macabre story.  Much like Joe Green, Elias “Country” Brown, an infielder/outfielder for east coast teams in the 1920s, was known for his on-field comedy act.  He’d go to bat on his knees, or pretend to dig a grave for the umpire, or hold imaginary phone conversations, sort of like a louder, bawdier version of Bob Newhart.

James Riley writes of Brown:

His wife was an actress and, in the off-season, he pulled the curtain for her.  Brown was involved in a tragic altercation with his wife’s brother that resulted in his brother-in-law’s death.  When Brown knocked the man down, his head struck the sidewalk and the impact killed him. (Biographical Encyclopedia, p. 119)

However…in the New York Amsterdam News, January 1, 1938 (p. 3), we find this:

So instead of Brown killing his brother-in-law accidentally, his brother-in-law killed him, perhaps accidentally.  Was Riley reporting a version of the story that had been so garbled that it turned the particulars of the incident completely upside down?  And here we’re told that “Country Brown” was his baseball name, with his real name being Elias Bryant.

I’ve had zero luck so far tracking down either Elias Brown or Elias Bryant.  Anybody happen to know what’s going on here?