Agate Type

“certainly our ball players are professionals” : the 25th infantry wreckers, hawaii, 1915

Patrick Rock has come up with some fascinating material on the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Wreckers in Hawaii during the teens.  The Twenty-Fifth was one of the four all-black Army regiments (also including the Twenty-Fourth Infantry and the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry) known collectively as the “Buffalo Soldiers.”  All four regiments maintained good baseball teams in the 1910s and 1920s, but the Wreckers were the preeminent Army baseball team of that time (at least among teams that stayed together for a number of years, as opposed to temporary wartime aggregations), featuring in its lineup such luminaries as Bullet Rogan, Dobie Moore, Heavy Johnson, and Branch Russell, along with a number of other future Negro league players.  The Wreckers enjoyed their heyday at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, from 1915 to 1918, and at Camp Stephen D. Little, Cochise Santa Cruz County, Arizona, from 1918 to about 1921 (or perhaps later).

Patrick has been scouring Hawaii newspapers for reports on the Wreckers and their participation in both Army leagues and competitions involving civilian teams.  I wanted to post one article he found (from the Honolulu Commercial Advertiser, July 18, 1915) about a dispute that erupted between the Twenty-Fifth and the other (non-black) Army teams at Schofield Barracks, who wanted to restrict the Wreckers’ practices and stop them from paying their players and exempting them from guard and fatigue duty.  It has long been understand that the Twenty-Fifth Infantry team was essentially a professional club, and here we have the regiment’s representative, Lt. Charles Wyman, being quite frank about it.  “Certainly our ball players are professionals,” he says.  “They have received pay for playing.”

Anyway, check out the whole article.  (You should be able to enlarge by clicking.)

 

johnson, herring, stewart, 1920 st. louis giants

A few months ago Patrick Rock sent me copies of all the baseball coverage from the St. Louis Argus, 1919 through 1922. One of the first things I wanted to check was the U.S. Army Championships in late June / early July, 1920, and the concurrent movement of several players from the Army to the St. Louis Giants (Stewart, Moses Herring, and Heavy Johnson) and Kansas City Monarchs (Dobie Moore and Bullet Rogan).

There was nothing about Moore and Rogan, and Stewart still doesn’t have a first name, but otherwise the Argus confirms nearly everything I had speculated about, and adds some interesting new information.

--Johnson and Herring actually first appeared for the St. Louis Giants on June 24 against the Cuban Stars; in fact, Herring was hit by a pitch during the winning rally in the ninth inning (and may have scored the winning run).  I hadn’t previously had even a line score for this game, so this is new:

 

(St. Louis Argus, June 25, 1920, p. 5)

--Here the Army team that the Giants played on June 28, featuring Branch Russell, Carl Glass, and Dorsey Battles as well as Johnson, Herring, and Stewart, is referred to as the “U. S. Army Champions,” and is explicitly said to consist of players who were in St. Louis to compete in the Army athletic meet (meaning that Heavy Johnson, for example, must have been competing in some event).  Also, there were supposed to have been two games between the Giants and the Army team, but I’ve found a record of only the game on Monday.

(St. Louis Argus, June 25, 1920, p. 5)

--Here is some commentary from the St. Louis Giants’ owner, Charlie Mills, on his new acquisitions.  Headline first:

And then the relevant section from the article:

(St. Louis Argus, July 2, 1920, p. 5)

--Here is the first non-circumstantial evidence that Moses Herring of the 25th Infantry was indeed the St. Louis Giants’ Herring:

(St. Louis Argus, July 9, 1920, p. 1)

--Here is also confirmation that all winners of events at the Army Championships were to have been given berths in the Olympic trials held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, later in July.

 

(St. Louis Argus, July 9, 1920, p. 1)

As I have noted before, the trials took place on July 17 and 18, which conflict with St. Louis Giants games in which Moses Herring appeared.  So he definitely chose to play baseball in the Negro National League rather than compete to be in the Olympics.  I still don’t know whether Herring’s co-champion in the running hop, step, and jump, future Negro Leaguer Branch Russell, went to the Olympic trials or not.

--Finally, the following piece:

(St. Louis Argus, July 9, 1920, p. 5)

This tells us two things:

1) That “Johnson was kept out of the game after Monday by the army authorities,” which hints at an explanation for why Heavy Johnson, according to Dave Wyatt the best prospect of all the Army ballplayers joining the Giants and Monarchs at that time, did not continue with the Negro National League (he would join the Monarchs in 1922)—presumably Johnson did not get himself properly discharged, for whatever reason;

And 2) as I had speculated, Herring competed in (and won) the running broad jump on Monday, July 5, then rushed to Giants’ Park to join the game against the Cubans already in progress, coming in for Eddie Holtz at third base.

heavy johnson, st. louis giants, 1920

More than two years ago, I presented a circumstantial case that slugger Heavy Johnson played briefly for the St. Louis Giants in 1920, then returned to the Army for another two years before signing with the Monarchs in 1922.

Well, here is a passage from an article in the St. Louis Argus (June 2, 1922) about Opening Day, 1922, with the Monarchs, featuring Heavy Johnson, visiting the Stars:

 

“Johnson will be remembered as the husky soldier boy catcher who was with the Giants for a short time last year.  He returned to the army and on his release he was picked up by the Monarchs.”

The reporter says “last year,” which would be 1921; but it seems highly probable that he’s talking about 1920, when an Army ballplayer named Johnson played in two games for the Giants (one as a catcher), knocking out a game-breaking triple.  Dave Wyatt wrote at the time (July 10, 1920; see below) that “Uncle Sam has just recently turned loose a whole flock of baseball players from his army of athletes; St. Louis Giants grabbed three classy boys, one a catcher who is said to be the peer of them all.”  The three were infielders Moses Herring of the 25th Infantry, Stewart of the 24th, and “Johnson,” the catcher, “the peer of them all.”  It looks pretty certain now that he was indeed talking about Heavy Johnson.

Many, many thanks to Patrick Rock, who has recently supplied me with the complete baseball coverage of the St. Louis Argus for 1921 and 1922!  

Here is the Dave Wyatt article (Chicago Defender, July 10, 1920):

oscar johnson addendum

David Skinner let me know that researchers have found another possible death date for Heavy Johnson: March 13, 1962, again in Cleveland.  I checked this out, and found this record, in the U.S. Veterans’ Gravesites database:

Name: Oscar Johnson
Born: November 5, 1896
Died: March 13, 1962
Service Start Date: September 17, 1917
Buried in: Beverly National Cemetery, Beverly, New Jersey

The birthdate, of course, is similar to the birthdate found in the SSDI (November 2, 1896), though there it is coupled with a completely different death date (January 1964).  The service start date, September 17, 1917, is well after Heavy Johnson is known to have served in the 25th Infantry in Hawaii (beginning at least in October, 1915), and conflicts with the service record I found that puts his enlistment on December 10, 1913.  And finally, this Oscar Johnson is buried in New Jersey.  If Heavy Johnson passed away in Cleveland, it seems unlikely that he would have been shipped to New Jersey for burial (there certainly would have been more convenient national cemeteries); in addition, Heavy Johnson has no known connection to New Jersey.

It turns out that a World War I draft card exists for an Oscar Johnson born on November 5, 1896 (Heavy Johnson, of course, would not have had to register for the draft):

He was from Philadelphia, his father was a Swedish immigrant, and his race is recorded as white.

will the real oscar johnson please stand up?

Heavy Johnson’s current “official” dates, as found in Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia (2001 addendum p. 939), are: born November 2, 1896, Atchison, Kansas; died January 1964, Cleveland, Ohio.  There are two reasons for thinking that these might be mistaken:

1) The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) has an Oscar Johnson who fits these dates perfectly (born November 2, 1896; died January 1964), plus his Social Security Number was issued in Ohio before 1951.  Of the seven Oscar Johnsons listed in the SSDI who died in January 1964, this is the only one who comes anywhere close to the information  Riley gives for Heavy Johnson. 

When looking, however, at the “Ohio Deaths” database at Ancestry.com, the only fit is an Oscar Johnson, “non-white,” aged 67 (thus born in 1896 or 1897), who died on January 12, 1964—in Cincinnati, not Cleveland. (Let me emphasize that he’s the only Oscar Johnson listed in this database to have died in the state of Ohio in January 1964.)

Oscar “Heavy” Johnson, the baseball player, would not have filled out a World War I draft card, because he was already in the Army, where he served from at least October 1915 until spring 1922, when he joined the Monarchs.  However: I did find a draft card for an African-American named Oscar Johnson born on November 2, 1897—in Cincinnati, Ohio.  And one of the things we definitely know about Heavy Johnson is that he hailed from Atchison, Kansas.

This means that we can make a strong link between the Oscar Johnson of the SSDI and an Oscar Johnson who was born in Cincinnati.  There is a one-year discrepancy in the birth date (1896 in SSDI, 1897 on the WWI draft card), but that’s pretty common in such records.  In order for us to believe Heavy Johnson’s dates in Riley, we’d have to believe that there existed two black men named Oscar Johnson who had the same birthday (November 2, either in 1896 or 1897) and who died in the same month (January 1964) in the same state (Ohio), but that somehow they don’t coexist in either the SSDI or Ohio Deaths database.  It is certainly possible, but you can see that it’s a little unlikely.

2) The second reason for doubting the dates given for Heavy Johnson is that the birthdate, November 2, 1896, does not square with the 1895 Kansas State Census, which was, presumably, taken in 1895, and includes Oscar, aged two months, living with his family in Atchison.  The 1900 and 1905 records obviously show the same family, with the ages more or less consistent throughout (allowing for the small variations typical in these kinds of records).  The 1900 census shows a birth date of April, 1895, for Oscar.  The 1905 Kansas State Census shows Oscar aged 10.  As I’ve said before, this is the only African-American named Oscar Johnson shown living in Atchison over these three censuses.  Again, while it’s possible that there were two black Oscar Johnsons in Atchison over this time, only one of which shows up in the records, the likelier explanation is that Heavy Johnson is indeed this Oscar, and that he was born well before November 2, 1896. (Images from these census records were posted yesterday.)

I have three other records to throw into the mix here.  The first is the 1920 census, which shows a black man named Oscar Johnson assigned to Camp Stephen D. Little in Nogales, Arizona, aged 28, born in Kansas, with both parents born in Virginia (the birth states match the Atchison Oscar Johnson).

The second is a World War II draft card for an Oscar Johnson living in Ohio, who was born on April 20, 1892, in Atchison, Kansas:

And the third is this, from Ohio Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines, World War, 1917-18, p. 8543 (digitized by Ancestry.com):

To translate:
Name: Oscar Johnson
Race: Colored
Residence: Youngstown, Ohio
Enlistment Divison: Regular Army
Enlistment Location: Columbus Barracks, Ohio
Enlistment Date: 10 December 1913
Birth Place: Atchison, Kansas
Age at Enlistment: 21 7/12 years [meaning born in April or May, 1892]
Assigned to Company K, 25th Infantry until discharge
Promoted to PFC: 1 March 1917
Demoted to Private: 1 November 1917
Promoted to PFC: 9 July 1918
Honorable Discharge: 30 March 1919

Again, unless there were two Oscar Johnsons from Atchison, Kansas, who served simultaneously in the 25th Infantry, one of whom doesn’t show up in any records, these three records all refer to the same man, and he’s the baseball player, Heavy Johnson.  The 1892 birth year instead of 1895 is probably the result of Johnson lying about his age to get in the military, just as Bullet Rogan and Oscar Charleston did.  (And Rollo Wilson, btw, seems to be wrong on the small detail that Johnson left Atchison directly to enlist in the Army.)

Note also that Oscar Johnson was living in Youngstown when he enlisted.  This provides some strong evidence that Benjiman Harrison Johnson (born in Atchison, living in Youngstown), whose draft card I posted yesterday, was in fact Oscar Johnson’s brother Harrison.

So, although there are certainly some loose ends left, a likely interpretation of Oscar Johnson’s early life, as found in these records, would go something like this: he was born in Atchison, probably on April 20, 1895 (or thereabouts); sometime after 1905, he, his brother, and their father (as noted on Harrison’s draft card), and perhaps others in their family, moved to Youngstown, Ohio, where, in 1913, Oscar added three years to his age in order to enlist in the Army. He then used this false birth date for the rest of his life (just as Rogan did).  He was honorably discharged from the Army in March 1919, but had reenlisted by January 1920, when he appears in the census at Camp Stephen D. Little in Arizona.  He may have played two games for the St. Louis Giants during a brief break from the Army in July 1920; he definitely left the service for good when he joined the Monarchs in 1922.  His last stops in the major Negro Leagues were Cleveland (in 1928) and Memphis (off and on from 1928 to 1933, with a detour to the Dayton Marcos in 1931); by 1942 he was back in Cleveland, not far from Youngstown, where his family, or part of it, had lived in the 1910s (and perhaps still did).

Unfortunately, we’re left (once again) not knowing when or where Heavy Johnson died—though it would seem that Riley had independent information that he passed away in Cleveland, probably in the 1960s (the original edition gave his death as 1966 in Cleveland).

UPDATE 7:47 p.m.  ...though I should add that there is an Oscar Johnson,“non-white,” in the “Ohio Deaths” DB who died in Cleveland on October 9, 1960, aged 68 (consistent with the April 1892 birthdate Heavy Johnson seems to have used).  There is, of course, no direct proof that this is Heavy Johnson, but it does match the general thrust of the records presented here.

he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

I’m starting a new category called “Unsolved Mysteries,” which will include interesting but unresolved research questions (or half-baked research, if you prefer)*.  The following is from the same Rollo Wilson column that provided the José Méndez bit the other day (Pittsburgh Courier, October 11, 1924):

I don’t think anybody’s ever put anything in print about Oscar “Heavy” Johnson’s having a ballplaying brother.  According to Wilson, Heavy’s brother played for both the Indianapolis ABCs and the Dayton Marcos, but I don’t have any leads there—Louis “Dicta” Johnson and Tom Johnson, both well-known players who weren’t related to Heavy Johnson and whose biographies don’t fit Wilson’s description above, were the only men with that last name to play for C. I. Taylor’s ABCs.  William “Big C” or “Wise” Johnson played for the Marcos in 1920; but that team existed at least from 1917 through 1926, and I don’t have rosters for most of those years.

Working the Atchison, Kansas, angle, I found Oscar Johnson’s family in the 1900 U.S. Census and the 1895 and 1905 Kansas State Census.  They’re easy to find: there were at least three black Oscar Johnsons born in Kansas of roughly Heavy Johnson’s age, but only one can be connected to Atchison.  Here they are in the 1895 Kansas State Census, living in Atchison:

And in the 1900 United States Census, again in Atchison:

The parents, Frank and Harriet, were born in Virginia before the Civil War, almost certainly as slaves.  Their first few children were born in Virginia as well; going by the census data here, they must have moved to Kansas sometime between the birth of Cynthia (November 1883) and Harrison (March 1888).

And in the 1905 Kansas State Census, still living in Atchison:

Their states of birth were on the following page, which I’m not reproducing here, but they match the information in the earlier records, with the parents and older children born in Virginia, the younger children (including Oscar) born in Kansas.

So Oscar’s brothers were named, in order of age: James, Edward, John, Frank Jr., Harrison, and Samuel.

According to the 1900 census, Oscar’s mother had by then borne 11 children, with 9 surviving.  In 1900, six were living with them: Matilda, Cynthia, Harrison, Samuel, Beulah, and Oscar.  Three of the older siblings reappear in the 1905 census (James, Edward, and Frank Jr.), which completes the nine children living in 1900.  If these numbers are accurate, then Oscar’s older brother John, listed as 16 back in 1895, seems to have passed away by 1900, as did another child, unnamed in any of these records.  And by 1905, two other children, Samuel and Beulah, are not living with the family.

Unfortunately, most of these names—James Johnson, Edward Johnson, John Johnson, Frank Johnson Jr.—are extremely common and hard to trace.  But I have found a World War I draft card for a Benjiman [sic] Harrison Johnson, born in Atchison, Kansas, on March 10, 1889 (the same month, though one year off from the birthdate for Oscar’s brother Harrison given in the 1900 census), and living in Youngstown, Ohio:

I have no way of knowing whether or not this guy was a ballplayer.  But I do have one more reason, aside from the name and Atchison connection, for thinking he’s Oscar “Heavy” Johnson’s brother—which I’ll talk about in another entry, this one on Heavy himself, tomorrow.

P.S.  The title of this post came from the Hollies’ song; but, if you believe Wikipedia, the phrase itself may have originated as the title of an article published in Kiwanis Magazine in September, 1924—only a month before the Rollo Wilson column with the anecdote about Heavy’s brother.

*-Eh, what the heck—I’ll just call it “Half-Baked Research.”

bubbles, heavy, or the big C?

Who was the “Johnson” who played for the St. Louis Giants on July 4 and 5, 1920?  There are three known possibilities:

Clark and Lester’s Negro Leagues Book has “Roy Johnson” at first base for St. Louis, and also at second base for Kansas City.  Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia fills him out a bit, calling him Roy “Bubbles” Johnson, and giving him a career that lasts until 1922:

A marginal player during the early ‘20s, he appeared briefly as a first baseman with the St. Louis Giants [1920] before joining the Kansas City Monarchs as a reserve second baseman [1920-22]. (p. 442)

Both sources also have a Ray Johnson playing outfield for St. Louis in 1923.  (Both books, by the way, are probably drawing on the same research, whoever originally did it.  They probably shouldn’t be considered independent sources.)  Although the nickname makes you think there must be a real person behind what otherwise are mere entries in lists, that’s the only biographical detail we’re given.  And there is something we do know, at least circumstantially, about the guy in St. Louis in early July: we have very good reason to believe that he was the same player who appeared in the 25th Infantry lineup on June 28--which would strongly imply he was, like Stewart and Herring, fresh from the Army.  Perhaps Bubbles Johnson was a veteran.  But, so far at least, I haven’t seen anything at all about him, other than the above.

There are, however, two Negro Leaguers with the name “Johnson” who are well-known as veterans of the 25th Infantry.  One is William “Big C” or “Wise” Johnson.  Phil Dixon, who knew him, suggested to me that Wise Johnson might be our man.  Phil pointed out that he started his career with the Dayton Marcos not long after the games in question in St. Louis.  Sure enough, Big C’s first league game with the Marcos was on July 11—in St. Louis, as a matter of fact, against Joe Green’s Chicago Giants.  So Wise Johnson, veteran of the 25th Infantry, can be placed in St. Louis within just a few days of the 25th Infantry/St. Louis Giants game and the two games “Johnson” subsequently played for the Giants.  Plus, during his Negro League career he was most frequently a catcher (matching Wyatt’s statement that the catcher was the best of the Army players), though he seems to have been mostly an outfielder for Dayton that year.  Case closed?

Not quite.  If we take Wyatt’s article seriously (which is kind of a contradiction, since we already know it isn’t exactly correct in what it says or implies about Rogan’s path to Chicago), three players came together to the St. Louis Giants fresh from the Army.  And in the Chicago Defender a few months earlier (March 6, 1920), we find this small item:

Wise Johnson, the Big C, would seem to have already been out of the Army since at least March.  When the Peoria Black Devils came to St. Louis in May, he appears to have been in the lineup (Globe-Democrat, May 19, 1920):

But still: perhaps Wise Johnson left Peoria and came to St. Louis, hoping to catch on with the Giants, and met up with his old Army buddies who were also in the city.  Maybe he played in the June 28 game, even though he was no longer enlisted.  The “25th Infantry” squad might have been more of a “pickup” team; after all, they did use a white pitcher.  It’s possible.  Also, at least two of his Peoria teammates were picked up by St. Louis that season (pitchers Wayne Carr and Joe Casey). (Meanwhile, yet another Johnson is playing the outfield for Peoria...)

Except that the Dayton Marcos were in Detroit on July 4 and 5—the very days “Johnson” played for St. Louis—taking the field against a pair of white semipro teams, the Alconas and the Cowpers.  And on both days we find “Johnson” in right field.  Here’s the box score for the second game (Detroit Free Press, July 6, 1920):

It would seem that the Big C was already with the Marcos before they set foot in St. Louis (where, by the way, he continued to bat seventh and play right field).

That leaves us with the other Negro Leaguer named Johnson known to have played baseball in the 25th Infantry: Oscar “Heavy” Johnson, who played for the 25th Infantry Wreckers since at least fall, 1915, in Hawaii, until spring, 1922, when he left the Army to join the Monarchs.  Johnson frequently caught during his Army career, and with Kansas City he started out as a catcher (though he quickly moved to the outfield). In his first NNL season, Heavy tortured Negro League pitching with a .389/.438/.644 performance.  Patrick Rock’s 1923 Negro National League Yearbook shows Heavy at .406/.462/.722 for that season, including a league-leading 20 home runs.  Putting the two seasons together gives us:

Heavy Johnson 1922-1923
G: 158
AB: 582
H: 233
D: 51
T: 18
HR: 28
W: 52
SB: 26
AVE: .400
OBA: .453*
SLG: .694
(*-not including hit by pitch for 1923)

We can safely say he hit the ground running.  If you read the Wyatt article the way I do, he’s saying that the catcher was the best of all the Army prospects, Rogan and Moore included.  If he had in mind a guy capable of numbers like this, the statement begins to makes sense.

But what happened to him?  If Heavy Johnson indeed played for the St. Louis Giants in 1920, why did his teammates Stewart and Herring (who hit nothing like this) continue on with the team, while he disappeared after two games (one of which he broke up with a late-inning, bases-loaded triple)?  I’ll bring the story to a conclusion (of sorts) tomorrow.

from the wreckers to the st. louis giants

Today we pick up where we left off yesterday, but tack in a slightly different direction.

It turns out that on June 28, 1920, just days before Bullet Rogan and Dobie Moore, veterans of the 25th Infantry “Wreckers” baseball team, debuted with the Kansas City Monarchs in St. Louis, the St. Louis Giants played a game against—the 25th Infantry team.  However, neither Moore nor Rogan are to be found in the box score, though several other Negro League names are, as well as a rather interesting pitcher.  Here it is, from the June 29, 1920, St. Louis Globe-Democrat:

Unless the Ellers were a very progressive family for the 1920s, it would seem that the 25th Infantry played behind a white pitcher that day.  (Hod Eller, incidentally, would show up as an umpire for some Negro National League games played in Cincinnati in 1921.) Now, check out the second game of the Monarchs/Giants series, played on July 4 (Globe-Democrat, July 5, 1920):

Three of the Giants’ players—Herring, Stewart, and Johnson—appear in their lineup for the first time that season.  And the same three names appeared in the 25th Infantry lineup on June 28.  Lastly (for today) here’s Dave Wyatt’s story on Rogan’s first appearance in Chicago on July 5 (Defender, July 10, 1920):

Wyatt corroborates the acquisition by St. Louis of three Army players, one of them “a catcher who is said to be the peer of them all”--all the baseball players recently let out of the Army, that is (at least that’s how I read it).  Johnson played first base on July 4 against the Monarchs, but on July 5, with the Monarchs in Chicago, the St. Louis Giants hosted the Cuban Stars, with Johnson behind the plate.  What the heck—I’ll post that one, too (Globe-Democrat, July 6, 1920):

After helping beat the Cubans, Johnson promptly disappeared from the St. Louis lineup.  Herring and Stewart remain through much of the rest of the season, but as far as I can tell, Johnson is gone.  So who was he?  Tune in tomorrow.