Agate Type

Black Baseball & The 1918 Pandemic

Ted Kimbro of the St. Louis Giants and Pearl Webster of the Brooklyn Royal Giants, both in 1916.

As the 1918 baseball season entered its stretch run, the military draft and the government’s “work or fight” order were putting heavy pressures on black professional teams. With several of their players gone to the service the Indianapolis A.B.C.s disbanded in late August. Meanwhile in Chicago Rube Foster, despite also having lost a number of performers, decided to soldier on.

In part Foster was led to this decision because white semipro baseball teams, staffed by players who worked in essential industries, were enjoying what Dave Wyatt in the Chicago Defender called “the greatest run of prosperity that it has undergone in years” (“A.B.C.’s Have Disbanded,” August 31, 1918). “Pikers beware,” he wrote three weeks later, “there are any number of high class National and American league players who…have employment considered essential and the industries furnishing such work have baseball teams” (“Beloit Returns to Wrest Championship From American Giants,” September 21, 1918). The American Giants thus had plenty of opponents who could attract fans. When the Cubs/Red Sox World Series (played entirely in September after the regular season was shut down early) ended with a Boston victory on September 11, Foster’s team became the main sports attraction in Chicago.

Wyatt explained (September 14, 1918) that Foster’s players also dealt with the work or fight order by seeking “essential” employment, thus obtaining draft deferrals or low classifications that would make them unlikely to be drafted. Pete Hill and Bruce Petway, for example, both found work as civilian employees of the U.S. Army Quartermasters Corps.

But a quieter, more insidious enemy was stalking baseball (and the world). Wyatt opened an article in the October 19 issue of the Defender this way:

“With old Jack Frost and his hellish cohorts influenza, pneumonia, colds and chills hurling all sorts of bombs our way, a few thousand of the loyal and brave devotees of baseball swooped down upon Schorling Park and demanded the unconditional surrender of the venerable old Jack.”

Of course you can’t defeat a pandemic by crowding together into a baseball park. The game Wyatt was writing about—a 7-to-0 win by the American Giants over a white all-star team—was the American Giants’ last contest for the season. On October 12 the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health issued an order closing theaters, dance halls, and other “places of public amusement” and banning “all public gatherings of a social nature, not essential to the conduct of the war.” “INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC CLOSES BASEBALL SEASON,” declared the Defender on November 2, 1918. Rube Foster had to cancel a game that would have pitted his American Giants against a white semipro team starring Jim “Hippo” Vaughn, who had pitched for the Cubs in the recent World Series.

Partly due to the fact that baseball was entering its offseason just as the pandemic took off, there was not a lot of contemporary commentary about the disease in relation to the Negro leagues, at least not that I could find.  Remarkably, given that tens of millions (possibly as many as 100 million) died worldwide of the so-called Spanish flu, to my knowledge only two likely victims of the pandemic were connected to black baseball. Both contracted the illness in the military.

 

Dan Kennard, Ted Kimbro, McKinley Downs, and George Brown of the 1915 West Baden Sprudels. This is a detail from a larger photo sent to me by Kim Agan.

Born in St. Louis but raised in Oklahoma, Ted Kimbro began playing professional ball in 1914 with the West Baden Sprudels. After stints with the Louisville White Sox and St. Louis Giants, he moved east to join the Lincoln Giants. His entire baseball career took place before he turned 23; in 104 games against black opposition he hit .283, playing mostly third base and second base.

He was inducted into the U.S. Army on July 18, 1918, and sent to Camp Dix, New Jersey, but continued to play ball on weekends. His last appearance was for the Lincoln Giants on September 1 in a doubleheader against the Royal Giants. Less than a month later he was dead.

According to military records the cause of Kimbro’s death was bronchopneumonia, probably a result of influenza, occurring as it did at the height of the pandemic. The massive U.S. war effort greatly facilitated the spread of the virus, and Camp Dix was hit hard in September and October. Nearly 8000 soldiers came down with the disease, and 774 died. The whole huge training camp was quarantined on September 23, just a week before Kimbro passed away.

(Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 20, 1918, p. 18)

Like Kimbro, Pearl Franklyn“Specks” Webster was born in Missouri, the far northeastern corner to be exact. Also like Kimbro he started out with midwestern teams, but within a couple of years had moved to the east coast. The Royal Giants are the team he’s most identified with, but he played for at least eleven professional teams in the U.S., plus two more in Cuba.

Webster was a a catcher who ran really, really well, much like the better-known Bruce Petway. Although Petway, whose defense was legendary, was probably a much better defender than Webster (who spent a lot of time in the outfield and at first base), Webster was in turn a much better hitter, batting .301 against black opposition, versus Petway’s .231. Webster also averaged an astonishing 77 stolen bases per 154 games (he stole 73 in 146 games with recorded steals), while Petway averaged only 26 per 154 games over his career.

In 1918 Webster and Kimbro were teammates on both the Grand Central Terminal Red Caps and the Hilldale Club, appearing together for the latter team as late as August 8. They were inducted into the Army on the same day, July 18, and were assigned to the same training unit, the 153rd Depot Brigade.

Unlike Kimbro, Webster survived the Camp Dix outbreak. In fact he seems to have completed training and shipped out to France with the 807th Pioneer Infantry by the end of August, before things really went south at Camp Dix. He died in France (I still don’t know the exact location) on November 16. His cause of death was listed as lobar pneumonia. As in Kimbro’s case, although “influenza” isn’t mentioned in the record I have access to, it seems likely that his pneumonia was a consequence of the flu pandemic, given when and where it occurred.

Kimbro and Webster are two of the three black ballplayers known to have died in military service during World War I. The third, Hilldale’s Norman Triplett, died in France of “measles and pneumonia,” according to military records.

Return of the Lost Island Giants

More than a decade ago I wrote about the Lost Island Giants, a 1917 team based in Ruthven, Iowa, that featured Hurley McNair, Ruby Tyrees, and Bingo Bingham, among others. Recently I ran across a photo of the Giants in the Sioux City Journal (September 13, 1917, p. 10), and thought it was worth posting here. For a number of these players this is the only image I’ve seen of them (although the quality isn’t quite good to use any of these on Seamheads).

Owned and operated by Robert Gilkerson, the Lost Island Giants were a predecessor to Gilkerson’s Union Giants, a team that would be a staple of the Midwestern barnstorming circuit well into the 1930s.

Here’s the article that accompanied the photo:

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).

Dobie Moore: One Last Word

Dobie Moore with the 25th Infantry Wreckers in 1916

Long-time readers of this blog will remember my nearly decade-long effort at chronicling the search for Walter “Dobie” Moore, the great Kansas City Monarchs shortstop who was shot in 1926 and subsequently dropped out of sight. When I last wrote about this in 2016, we had established the case, pretty much beyond a reasonable doubt, that Dobie Moore the ballplayer and Walter Moore of Detroit, who died on August 20, 1947, were the same person.

But of course it is always helpful to have confirmation. Up to the plate steps Karl Jensen, who also does research for the Medal of Honor Historical Society of the United States, locating the grave sites of Medal of Honor recipients. First, Karl found the 1919 World War I service card for Walter Moore of Atlanta, who enlisted at Georgia’s Fort Oglethorpe on May 11, 1915, at the age of 22 and two months. He then served in Company A of the 25th Infantry until June, 1919, and was discharged “for immediate re-enlistment”—which of course fits Dobie Moore’s career in the Army.

(Moore evidently did re-enlist immediately, as in January 1920 he appears in the U.S. census with the 25th Infantry at Camp Stephen D. Little in Arizona. I really don’t know much about military records, so I am curious about whether there is another record somewhere that shows this last period of service. He apparently re-upped for an additional year, as he and Bullet Rogan first played for the Kansas City Monarchs in early July, 1920.)

Then Karl found Moore’s Veterans Administration Master Index Card. The dates, unit, and serial number—335,099—all match. It gives a birth date of February 8, 1893—Moore, like Rogan, evidently lied about his age when he enlisted—and a clerk has penciled in his date of death: August 20, 1947, the date Walter Moore died in Detroit.

I was already quite sure we had the right person, but thanks to Karl, this should lay to rest any lingering doubts.

If you want to go back and follow the process from the beginning, here are the relevant links:

• Why all published birth and death information for Dobie Moore is wrong (October 20, 2007)
• Walter Moore’s WW2 draft card found (October 23, 2007)
• Image of Walter Moore’s WW2 draft card (February 8, 2013)
• Walter Moore’s death record found (April 30, 2013)
• Dobie Moore at George Carr funeral 1948 (April 30, 2013)
• Copy of Walter Moore’s death certificate; second 1948 sighting of Dobie Moore (May 9, 2013)
• 1924 passenger list found (May 17, 2014)
• Dobie Moore’s younger brother Allen “Pete” Moore was also a professional ballplayer (January 29, 2016)

Josh Gibson, Cuban Stars

The following photograph has provoked some wonder and curiosity in Negro league circles, because it appears to show Josh Gibson playing for a Cuban Stars team—something that has not been documented by historians or noted in any reference works.

At the end of the back row, standing at the far right, are Josh Gibson and Rap Dixon. Here are their images, side by side with other photos of the ballplayers, for comparison’s sake:

The photo certainly shows the Cuban Stars team run by Syd Pollock in the early 1930s, also sometimes known as the Cuban House of David. They had no actual connection to the House of David religious cult and baseball team—Pollock simply appropriated the name and the idea of wearing beards, and combined them with his already existing “Cuban” brand (previously the team was called the Havana Red Sox, or sometimes the Cuban Red Sox), to drum up attendance. One of the other (white) House of David outfits sued Pollock at the end of 1931 to try to force him to give up the name. Then, when he placed his team in the 1932 East-West League, as a condition of entry the league made the players shave off their beards and call themselves the Cuban Stars.

Here’s a photo of the 1932 team, probably pictured early in the year when they were still calling themselves the Cuban House of David. The lone guy in the beard (third from the right standing) is none other than Jimmy Claxton.

According to RMY Auctions, the players in the top row are, L to R: Carlos Etchegoyen, Johnnie Bob Dixon, Lázaro Salazar, Luis Tiant, Jimmie Claxton, Terris McDuffie, and Cándido Gálvez. Bottom row, L to R: Pedro Díaz, Pedro Lanuza, Pablo (really Fermín) Váldez, Ramiro Ramírez, Francisco Correa, Ramón Rojas (aka “Battling Siki”), Barney Brown. All these players indeed played for Pollock’s team in 1932.

As you can see, the uniforms in the Gibson-Dixon photo are identical to those in the earlier picture, with the exception of the socks. Here’s a comparison of the flags on the jersey fronts (U.S. and Cuban flag, crossed):


So, did Gibson and Dixon join the Cuban Stars/Cuban House of David team at some point in the 1932 season? There’s no reason to think so, as far as I can tell. Both were playing for the Pittsburgh Crawfords at the time. Both played in most of the Crawfords games, and the small gaps in their time with the Crawfords don’t match up with each other. Meanwhile during these gaps Pollock’s Cuban Stars were generally playing pretty far away and in obscure-ish locations. It would no doubt have cost a bit of money to hire Gibson and Dixon away from the Crawfords, even for a short time, and one would think Pollock would want to maximize their impact on his bottom line by 1) playing some high-profile games and 2) heavily advertising their presence, in local papers and maybe in the black weeklies, too. There’s no evidence of any of this happening.

So how did two Pittsburgh Crawfords get into a photo of the Cuban Stars when there’s no evidence they played for the team? First, it’s worth noting that the two photos have substantially different personnel—obviously many (in fact nearly all) of the players from the photo with Claxton are missing from the photo with Gibson and Dixon. It almost seems like a completely different team wearing the same uniforms.

In fact, upon closer examination the two photos share only a single player, the manager Ramiro Ramírez. In the Gibson-Dixon photo he’s kneeling on the far right, in the Claxton photo he’s in the middle of the front row. Here are the two photos, together with a third of Ramírez for comparison:

Glancing over the others, aside from Gibson and Dixon one obvious ID is Dick Seay, kneeling on the far left. The player standing just to the left of Gibson and Dixon looks like Terrible Ted Page to me, and in the middle of the back row (fourth from left) is the first baseman Dave Thomas.

So when did all these players appear on the same team? One key document does group them together. It’s a passenger list for the SS Carabobo, arriving in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from New York on November 20, 1933.

This page lists 14 players, the same number as in the photo. Here are Gibson, Dixon, Ramírez, Seay, Thomas, and Page. And in fact the other players on the list allow us to figure out a few other folks.

Neck Stanley:

Leroy Morney:

 

Otis Starks:

 

Harry Williams:

 

Jim Williams:

There are the only a few extant photos of Harry Salmon, the Alabama native who taught Satchel Paige how to control his fastball. Here is the tall guy standing on the far left compared with a not-very-good image of Salmon from the Birmingham Reporter in 1926. I would say it’s a match:

That leaves two players from the passenger list. One is William “Mickey” Casey. I can’t at the moment lay my hands on images of him, aside from a couple that are so poor they really don’t help much. But of the two unidentified players left, the one kneeling in the front row has a catcher’s mitt.

That leaves a lone player who lacks any images anywhere (at least that I’m aware of), the pitcher Tom Richardson. By process of elimination, here is the Cuban Star who’s left, and who seems likely to be Richardson:

The mystery photo, then, appears to show a Syd Pollock Cuban Stars team that we first see headed to Puerto Rico in November 1933. Josh Gibson did play for the Cuban Stars--but, as far as we can tell, only in Puerto Rico during the winter of 1933-34.

It’s worth noting that the Pollock Cuban Stars that played in the U.S. during the summer of 1933 had a completely different roster, with only Otis Starks and Ramiro Ramírez surviving to feature in Puerto Rico that winter. It appears that Pollock put together almost a whole new team for his island venture.

Now, I haven’t been able to find any specific mention in the U.S. press of this team. But W. Rollo Wilson wrote the following in his Pittsburgh Courier column on October 14, 1933, a month before they departed New York for San Juan:

Clearly in mid-October winter season plans were still in flux. Some of this movement can be confirmed, but other plans obviously changed. Wilson has Biz Mackey, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and Oscar Charleston going to California. To my knowledge, of those players only Paige actually wound up on the west coast (and Gibson of course went to Puerto Rico).

Wilson says that a Cuban Stars club (he doesn't specify if he means Pollock's team, the Max Rosner-owned Cuban Stars, or another club entirely) was headed for Puerto Rico, one that would include Dick Lundy, Jud Wilson, Bill Holland, Slim Jones, and Tex Burnett (but none of the players in the photo or earlier passenger list). Passenger lists  show that all these guys except Jud Wilson did in fact travel to Puerto Rico that winter.

I think there might be ample coverage of Pollock's Cuban Stars, and all these other teams, in Puerto Rican papers or baseball publications for that winter. If anybody knows, please get in touch!

Thanks to Jay Caldwell for calling the photo of the 1933 Cuban Stars/Cuban House of David team to my attention.

 

Bumpus Jones: Passing as White?

Bumpus Jones, who pitched a no-hitter in his very first appearance in the major leagues in 1892, may have been a black man who passed for white. In fact, as I explained a few years ago, I think he very probably was passing. This conclusion was based mostly on census and other government documents, which I examine in the post.

But there is another line of evidence, one that is potentially much more important. Chris Rainey, the author of two versions of a short biography of Jones, noted in one of them that “old-timers in Cedarville” (Ohio, Jones’s home town) said, “He was black, you know.” Although this is only vaguely sourced, it does point toward something like a consensus within the Cedarville community about the racial identity of Jones and his family.

Since I wrote that post, I’ve come across some additional evidence that at least makes the sourcing more specific. First—upon Jones’s death in 1938, Gordon Graham, an Indiana sportswriter who had grown up in Cedarville, wrote:

“Old Bumpus hurled a no-hitter for Cincinnati in 1893 [sic], his first year in major league baseball. He was a star, somewhat like Johnny Vander Meer, in his freshman season. But Bumpus didn’t last long, although he played in high class minor league baseball until 1903.

“All of this may not mean much to you readers. But we of Cedarville know that Bumpus Jones was a negro. And negroes are not allowed in organized baseball. Whenever you check over that ‘Baseball Hall of Fame’, remember that there is one colored man in the group, despite the fact his race is barred from our National game…Charles ‘Bumpus’ Jones” (Lafayette, Indiana, Journal and Courier, July 8, 1938, p. 10).

(The “Hall of Fame” mention here is not a reference to Cooperstown; it’s an old figure of speech whereby anybody who tossed a no-hitter was said to have entered the Hall of Fame.)

Graham returned to the subject 15 years later when Bobo Holloman of the St. Louis Browns threw a no-hitter in his first major league start in 1953 (he had already relieved in several games, so it wasn’t his first big league appearance). He pointed out that Jones had accomplished the same feat more than 60 years before Holloman, and continued:

“It is quite possible that the career of Charles Leander Jones was choked off by something other than his pitching deficiencies. Negroes were not permitted to play in the majors then. Jackie Robinson broke down that silly barrier and supposedly became the first colored man to play in the big time. Around Cedarville ‘Bumpus’ Jones was listed as a Negro.” (Lafayette, Ind., Journal and Courier, May 8, 1953, p, 18.)

In both columns, Graham made his Cedarville bona fides clear, and spoke of how during his childhood “natives,” including his uncle, used to point out Jones and tell stories about him.

A few years later, in 1958, Al Schottelkotte, a columnist for the Cincinnati Enquirer, received the following letter:

“When I read your capsule quiz the other morning, I thought perhaps you were going to reveal that the first Negro to play with the Cincinnati Redlegs (Nino Escalera) was really a pitcher who was with the team in 1892 and 1893.

“This was Charles (Bumpus) Jones who, according to Lee Allen’s history of the Reds, was hired informally, pitched a no-hit, no-run game in his first appearance in 1892, and then, after losing five straight games, was released in 1893.

“Now, it is common knowledge in Cedarville, Ohio, which was his home, that Jones was a Negro. And, as far as I know, never claimed to be anything else there. Whether his light skin enabled him to pass as a Caucasian, or whether the Red management shut its eyes to the fact, I have never heard. His pitching exploits in amateur baseball were a great subject of conversation where fans gathered in Green and Clark Counties, when I was a boy. – R. T. Confer, 2531 Burnet Ave., Cincinnati.”

Schottelkotte responded: “The story that Bumpus Jones was a Negro never was officially confirmed, says Lee Allen.” (Cincinnati Enquirer, October 23, 1958, p. 5.)

If nothing else, the story of Bumpus Jones, or as much of it as we can discern now (more than 80 years after his death), serves to demonstrate just how complicated race, racism, and racial identity can be in American culture. Check out this article in The Guardian, about people in East Jackson, Ohio, who may appear white to outsiders, but hold on fiercely to a black identity. East Jackson is only about an hour and a half away from Cedarville.

Bertram Johnson

Bertram “Bert” Johnson was one of those gifted black ballplayers who suffered some bad luck in his career and has as a result been almost completely overlooked in histories. For years I wasn’t even certain of his name. In the 1930 census he appears as “Burton Johnson” (rooming in Houston with his Black Buffs teammates Samuel “Chuffy” Alexander and George “Eppie” Hamilton). His name appears variously as “Bert,” “Bertrand,” or “Burt.” In Riley’s Encyclopedia he is called “Bert Johnston” (with a “t”), and dismissed as “a big, awkward fellow and only a mediocre player” (p. 445).

Johnson was indeed big, a power-hitting outfielder who first appeared in professional ball as a player for the Houston Black Buffaloes of the Texas-Oklahoma League in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Led by player-manager Roy Parnell, the Black Buffs were good enough to challenge the 1929 NNL champion Kansas City Monarchs to a post-season series. In 1932 Johnson was signed by the Washington Pilots of the new East-West League. In February 1933 the Pittsburgh Courier wrote this about him:

(Pittsburgh Courier, February 4, 1933, p. A4)

Johnson’s tenure with the Pilots gave him an entrée into east coast baseball, and over the next few years he played in Baltimore and Newark. He thrived particularly at the latter stop, batting over .400 in recovered games for the Dodgers in 1934.

I haven’t found many details, but evidently Johnson struggled with an unspecified illness in the mid-1930s and dropped out of sight, before resurfacing with the Birmingham Black Barons of the new Negro American League in 1938. He was named to the western team in the second East-West All-Star Game played that year, in the Polo Grounds, and hit a home run in the fifth inning as the West built up a 4-to-0 lead. (They would surrender the lead and eventually lose in ten innings.) After that Johnson fades from the historical record.

Until a few months ago this is all I knew about him. But then his great-grandson, Sam Campbell, wrote. First of all he made it clear that his great-grandfather’s name was Bertram Johnson, and he said he was born in Round Rock, Texas. Here’s what else he had to say about him:

“His father was Andrew Joseph Johnson. My father is Joe Douglas Johnson, who still lives across the street from where Bert opened a beer joint named the Cozy Corner. He played baseball at Prairie View A&M, an HBCU in Texas. Bertram’s son Joe Lee Johnson was a WWII Vet and ran the joint after him, and my father Joe Douglas Johnson worked it up until he retired. It is still standing today. Bertram is buried in Round Rock. His son Joe Lee Johnson has an elementary school named for him in Round Rock. If you are interested, I have the whole history. One of my daughters, Jourdyn Campbell, is attending Texas A&M to play softball next year.  She is a homerun hitter.:)”

Sam also sent along this photograph of three Newark Dodgers. His great-grandfather Bert Johnson is on the left, but Sam wasn’t sure of the identity of the other two players:

I believe the shorter player in the middle is Paul “Sonny” Arnold. I’m not sure about the guy on the right, though to my eyes first baseman Jim Starks is a definite possibility.

Thanks to Sam, and good luck to Jourdyn, following in the footsteps of her great-great-grandfather.

Cuban Baseball Guides

I want to extend my thanks to Jason Mishelow, who recently loaned me three Cuban baseball guides from the 1945/46, 1946/47, and 1948/49 winter seasons. Here are the covers of two of them:

There are certainly some cool images inside these guides. Here is a team photo of the Almendares club, champions of the 1946/47 Cuban League:

Here is a page showing the league leaders and award winners for the 1948/49 season, including home run leader Monte Irvin, RBI leader Lennie Pearson, and runs scored leader Hank Thompson:

The 1948/49 guide also features a photo of the groundskeeper for El Gran Estadio de La Habana, which hosted all Cuban League games in 1948/49. Although his name is misspelled here, it is none other than Alfredo Cabrera, legendary Cuban League shortstop, career U.S. minor leaguer, and cup-of-coffee major leaguer in 1913. Here’s his picture in the 1948/49 guide side-by-side with his 1909 Cabañas card:

But the most important aspect of these Cuban baseball guides is the fact that they printed box scores for every single Cuban League game played during these three seasons.

This means that we can go well beyond the numbers published in Jorge Figueredo’s Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, to obtain fielding statistics, batters’ walks, pitchers’ home runs allowed, and so on—just as I’ve been able to do from newspaper box scores for Cuban League seasons in the 1900s, 1910s, and 1920s.

Thanks again to Jason for generously providing this amazing material. If anybody else has Cuban baseball guides—from any season—please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

St. Louis Stars, 1931

In the era of segregation, mainstream (white) newspapers generally ignored black baseball teams, aside from publishing box scores (as they did for nearly all high-profile baseball games, at least before the 1930s). There was very little reporting, very few interviews with players, managers, or owners, and almost no commentary. There were exceptions, however. On July 26, 1931, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat Magazine published a two-and-a-half-page article, with photos, on the St. Louis Stars. Here, courtesy of Newspapers.com, are images of the article. There is a ton of interesting detail in it.

Sadly, the Globe-Democrat was a little late with this effort, as both the original Negro National League and the original St. Louis Stars were already on their last legs. The last NNL games took place exactly a month after the publication of this article (August 26), and the Stars would play their last known game (against the Max Carey All Stars) on October 2, 1931.

Goose Tatum, 1946

Goose Tatum & King Tut

 

Len Durrant alerted me to this silent film (posted by the National Film Preservation Foundation) showing Goose Tatum of the Cincinnati-Indianapolis Clowns doing his thing in Cincinnati’s Crosley Field during a September 8, 1946, doubleheader against the Kansas City Monarchs. Tatum, of course, is more famous now as a Harlem Globetrotters star, but in the 1940s he may have been just as well-known as a baseball player.

Here are a few highlights:

0:16 Talking in the dugout, left to right: Eddie “Peanuts” Davis (number 14), Goose Tatum, and “King Tut” (Richard King).

1:20 Manager Jesse “Hoss” Walker in the dugout as the Clowns (including Tatum and catcher Sam Hairston) take the field.

1:58 Leo “Preacher” Henry warming up.

3:16 Buck O’Neil being thrown out at first.

3:40 Tatum batting left-handed (demonstrating that he was a switch-hitter).

4:12 Buck O’Neil playing first base.

5:20 Hilton Smith coaching at first base for the Monarchs.

5:43 Tatum attempting a hidden ball trick on Herb Souell (who, frankly, seems less than impressed).

I don’t know if these film clips were distributed in any way at the time, but they were obviously put together to highlight Tatum, not to provide an account of the games that were played that day. As it happens, the Monarchs, who had already clinched both halves of the Negro American League season and were headed to the World Series against the Newark Eagles, swept the second-division Clowns 15-5 and 8-5, clouting nine home runs in the process (none of which we see here). Hank Thompson hit four homers on the day, and Willard Brown three, including one clear out of the stadium. To be honest, I would rather have seen some of that action instead of the clowning.

(Cincinnati Enquirer, September 9, 1946, p. 15)

 

Most likely the film was made at the behest of Syd Pollock, who was marketing Tatum pretty heavily as the star of the Clowns’ comedy baseball routine:

(Newark OH Advocate, July 16, 1946, p. 10)