Bank Robber presents the official NEGRO LEAGUES thread

[Luv4Pac4Ever]

Great thread Robber. Interesting info, thanks. I definately gotta hand it to ya, you know your shit.

 

[Butt Rubber]

heres a funny story about Walter Johnson pitching a barnstorm game against Home Run Johnson, among other negro players:

from the book Baseball as America

Johnson Was Mistaken

Negro baseball is now a flourishing game, but as long as 30 years ago, the colored folks had their swell ball teams. Walter Johnson, on a barnstorming trip in 1909 went in Harlem to pitch for a colored team agaionst the Lincoln Giants.

"I Didn't know it was to be a colored team," Johnson was saying, "But they were paying me $600 for the day's work and that was big money. I went up there with my catcher, Gabby Street. Gabby was from Huntsville, Ala. and he didn't like the idea of playing colored baseball but the $300 he got was too much to overlook.

"It was the only time in my life that I was ever 2-1 to lose. Those were the odds they were offering against me. I'll never forget the first hitter I faced. He was an outfielder, they called 'Home Run Johnson.' Up at the plate, he says to me, 'come on Mr. Johnson, and throw that fast one in here an' I'll knock it over the fence.' That's exactly what he did, too. But it was the only run they got off me and I won the game 2-1.

"I didn't like the way this 'Home Run' Johnson was crowing about his hit, so the next few times up there I buzzed a couple close to his head just to scare him. He was hitting the dirt all day. THen in the last inning, he didn't even wait for me to cut loose. He ducked before I let the ball go. Then he got up off the ground to see what had happened and stuck his head in the way of a slow curve I had just cut loose."

hahahahaha i always laugh at that last line

 

[Butt Rubber]

Great thread Robber. Interesting info, thanks. I definately gotta hand it to ya, you know your shit.

aww im so flattered

 

[Butt Rubber]

I just found some Oscar Charleston statistics

1921 Oscar Charleston
NNL St. Louis Giants

*-led league
G-64 (team 64)
AB-225
H-98
D-12
T-10
HR-12
R-88*
W-34 (2nd in league)
HP-5
SH-8
SB-32* (tied for lead with teammate Joe Hewitt)
AVE-.436* (NeL .263)
OBA-.519* (NeL .324)
SLG-.738* (NeL .361)

Remember, this season was played in Giants' Park, which was *not* the same park as the later bandbox stadium called Stars' Park.

1923 Oscar Charleston
Indianapolis ABCs

*-led league
G-84 (team 84)
AB-308
H-112 (4th)
D-25 (2nd)
T-6
HR-11
R-68
RBI-94 (2nd)
W-49*
SB-25*
TB-182 (4th)
AVE-.364 (4th)
OBA-.443 (3rd)
SLG-.591 (3rd)

G-62 (team 62)
AB-219
H-74
D-8
T-5
HR-10
R-58
W-34 (2nd)
HP-0
SF-2
SH-2
SB-12
AVE-.338 (eNeL .282)
OBA-.424 (3rd; eNeL .333)
SLG-.557 (4th; eNeL .383)

this is compiled from games that were recorded, again, this is compiled of games stats that are KNOWN, not every game stat

In Championship Play

1929 6-13 vs. Chi Am Giants in World Series
1930 5-29 in playoff vs. New York
1931 22-43 in World Series vs. Monarchs
1935 10-27 in Playoff vs. Cuban Stars


In Cuba

1924 40-153
1926 61-151
1927 42-120
1928 38-114


Versus Major-League competition

1923 8-18 vs. major-league competition
1928 2-12 vs. major-league competition
1932 9-28 vs. major-league competition
1936 4-10 vs. major-league competition


Career
1689-4972, .340
197 hr, 22 Hr/550 ab
66-200 vs. major-league competition (.330 BA)
Black Ink 54, Gray Ink 174

 

[Butt Rubber]

Josh Gibson statistics

1940
G-22
AB-92
H-43
D-7
T-4
HR-11
R-32
RBI-38
BB-16
SO-6
HP-0
SH-0
SB-3
AVE-.467
OBA-.565
SLG-.989

And 1941, also with Veracruz:
G-94
AB-358
H-134
D-31
T-3
HR-33
R-100
RBI-124
BB-75
SO-25
HP-1
SH-0
SB-7
AVE-.374
OBA-.484
SLG-.754

Totals:
G-116
AB-450
H-177
D-38
T-7
HR-44
R-132
RBI-162
BB-91
SO-31
HP-1
SH-0
SB-10
AVE-.393
OBA-.496
SLG-.802

 

[Butt Rubber]

WILLARD BROWN

In July 1947 the St. Louis Browns were the worst team in major league baseball. In hopes of improving their fortunes, the Browns purchased the contracts of Henry Thompson and Willard Brown from the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs. The St. Louis Gazette-Democrat called the move "an eyebrow-lifting experiment." Thompson and Brown became the first black teammates in the major leagues. The move provoked a mixed response in a city many considered part of the South.

Brown, 36 at the time, lasted 21 games with the St. Louis Browns and was released after batting .179. He became the first black American Leaguer to hit a home run during his short stay with the last-place team. He returned to the Negro League and batted .374 with 18 homers in 1948 and .317 in 1949, ending his Negro League career with a .355 batting average.

Willard Brown had already spent a legendary career as one of the best players in the Negro Leagues. A powerful and fast slugger with a 40-ounce bat, Brown had grown up in Shreveport, Louisiana and had once been the Monarchs' spring training bat boy. He played his first games for the Monarchs in 1935.

Willard Brown let his bat speak for him in the winter following his release from the Browns. In the Puerto Rican Winter League, Brown hit 27 home runs while winning the league's Triple Crown. He won the Negro American League batting title in 1951 with a .417 average. In 22 years of professional baseball, Willard Brown hit for a combined average of .305 including .352 in the Negro Leagues. He is often considered the best home run hitter not included in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

 

[Butt Rubber]

Spottswood Poles:

Born: Nov. 7, 1889
Died: Sept. 12, 1962

Spottswood Poles, called the black Ty Cobb, won five battle stars and a purple heart in World War I with the 369th Infantry (Harlem Hell Fighters) while attached to the French Army.

He broke into professional black baseball as the center fielder and lead off hitter for the powerful 1909 Philadelphia Giants. He moved on the New York Lincoln Giants in 1911, where he batted .440 for the season and stole 41 bases in only 60 games. He hit .398 in 1912, .414 in 1913, and .487 in 1914.

With the Lincoln club in the 10 game 1915 black championship, Poles batted only .205, but because of his speed and base running ability scored 11 runs. In a 15 year Negro League career, Poles is credited with a .400 lifetime batting average and a .319 average for the four winter seasons he spent in Cuba. He is also credited with a .610 batting average in exhibition games against major league competition, many of which took place while Poles was in Cuba.`

 

[Butt Rubber]

Jud "Boojum" Wilson:

Jud’s career spanned from 1922 to 1945. He played all infield positions, and even played some outfield and managed.

Wilson was feared as a hitter and was known for his willingness to fight, any time, anywhere. In John Holway's Blackball Stars, Wilson's best friend, Jake Stephens, claimed, "The minute he saw an umpire, he became a maniac." A story in which Jud broke up a knife fight in the showers is also recounted. Several versions of a tale involving Wilson dangling Stephens out of a window by the ankles many stories about the sidewalk have made their way down through the years.

Jud got his nickname "Boojum" because that was the noise his line drives made when they hit the outfield walls. Satchel Paige claimed that Jud and Chino Smith were the two toughest outs he ever faced.

While records are sketchy, Wilson had one of the best batting averages in the Negro Leagues, and he also hit for power. His lifetime statistics in the Negro Leagues show a batting average of .345.

Wilson was one of the best hitters in baseball history. He led the league in hitting with a .373 average in the 1923 season, and went on to post a lifetime average in the Negro Leagues of .345. Wilson also recorded the highest lifetime average in the Cuban Winter Leagues, .372 for six seasons, including batting titles of .403 in '25-'26 and .441 in '27-8 playing for Havana.

Wilson was a star on four championship teams in a six year period between 1929 and 1934 (the '29 Baltimore Black Sox, the '31 Homestead Grays, the '32 Crawfords, and the '34 Phila Stars.) Satchel Paige considered him one to be one of the top two hitters he ever faced in the Negro Leagues (which is not surprising as Wilson hit .375 lifetime against Paige.)

In the photo at the right, Jud Wilson is in his Baltimore Black Sox uniform in 1923, the first year of the Eastern Colored League. This photo originates from the archives of the Baltimore Afro-American.

 

[Butt Rubber]

Oliver "The Ghost" Marcelle

1895-1949
By Bush Bernard
Published in the Daily Comet in 1996


The greatest third baseman to play in the Negro Leagues was born in Thibodaux.

But Oliver "The Ghost" Marcelle never got the recognition due such a man during his lifetime and for 42 years his body laid buried in an unmarked grave in Denver. He was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.

"I think Ollie Marcelle was the best third baseman there was," said Bobbie Robinson, a fellow third baseman who played against Marcelle in the Negro Leagues.

"He was colorful," Robinson said. "Some ball players, it just looks like they have more color when they take the field. I know he was one of the best."

Oliver Marcelle was born June 24, 1895, in Thibodaux. He was the fifth of Daniel and Eliza Marcelle's six children, according to census records. He had an older brother, Johnny, and sisters, Elnora, Celestine, Ann and Cecilea, who was 2 years younger than Oliver.

Little is known about his early life. John "Buck" O'Neil, a friend and former teammate who lives in Kansas City, said he didn't know Marcelle was from Thibodaux.

"He always said he was from New Orleans," O'Neil said.

His professional baseball career started in New Orleans, where he played for several teams during his teens. In 1918, he moved to Brooklyn where he played for the Brooklyn Royal Giants in 1918 and 1919.

He soon gained recognition for his fielding abilities and his flair for the dramatic, said Jay Sanford, a sports historian who lives in a Denver suburb. His nickname, "The Ghost," came from his fielding style.

He would stand 10 feet off the bag and wait for someone to hit a ball his way. He would run and leap, making the catch, Sanford said.

"It didn't seem like he was much faster than the other guys," Robinson said. "He played deeper than I did. He was just colorful."

"Ollie would play 10 feet closer to the batter than anyone else," Sanford said. "They'd shoot the ball at him and he'd catch it. He had cat-quick reaction."

From 1920-23 Marcelle played with the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, spent 1924 and part of 1925 with the New York Lincoln Giants, returned to Atlantic City in 1925 and stayed with them through 1928. He was part of the "Million Dollar" infield of the Baltimore Black Sox in 1929. He finished his playing career with the Brooklyn Royal Giants in 1930. His lifetime batting average was .305.

Marcelle was a fierce competitor with an equally fierce temper.

In a fight, "he'd hit you with whatever was available," Sanford said.

Although he had other players' respect, he had few friends.

Buck O'Neil is one of the few people who spoke kindly of Oliver Marcelle, Sanford said.

"They liked him as a player, but not as a person," Sanford said. "He drank a lot and fought a lot."

"When he drank he got nasty," Sanford said. "If he had a bat in his hand, he'd hit you with it. Even as an older man, living here in town, he'd get in fights in a crap game. It was like night and day."

His temper ended his career early.

During a fight over a craps game with a fellow player, Frank Warfield, in Cuba in 1929, Warfield bit off a piece of Marcelle's nose.

Marcelle started wearing a black eye patch over his nose.

"He was a proud, handsome guy, you know, and then he used to wear a black patch across his nose and he got so he couldn't play baseball any more," Bill Yancey, a player in the Negro Leagues, said in "Only the Ball was White," a book by Robert Peterson published in 1970.

Sanford went to Marcelle's old neighborhood doing research and could find no one that remembered him as a baseball player.

"I'd talk about baseball and get blank stares," Sanford said. "I'd talk about his nose, they'd say `The Patch.' "

Marcelle quit playing in 1930. He coached for a while and in 1933 toured with the Miami Giants, ending up in Denver.

His biggest contribution to baseball history didn't come as a player though.

The Denver Post sponsored one of the biggest semipro baseball tournaments in the country. In 1934, Marcelle convinced the Post's sports editor that the paper should invite the Kansas City Monarchs, a black team, to the tournament.

The Post invited the Monarchs, who had a pitcher by the name of Satchel Paige, who would later join the Hall of Fame.

The tournament was Paige's first exposure to the white press. Sanford believes that Marcelle's prodding speeded up the integration of baseball.

Prior to the 1934 tournament, Denver had black teams and white teams. The next year, Denver's baseball teams were integrated.

"That was 11 years prior to Jackie Robinson," Sanford said.

O'Neil, who played for the Monarchs, said the tournament was one of the best ever.

"I'd played white teams before," he said. "But the Denver Post Tournament was one of the best."

He said players didn't think of the tournament as a milestone in history at the time.

"I don't think we thought about black and white as much, as far as everyone was concerned."

Marcelle worked as a laborer for a while and continued to drink, Sanford said. He was estranged from his family, although his son, Ziggy, a former Southern University basketball star, also played in the Negro Leagues.

Marcelle died penniless on June 12, 1949, two weeks before his 54th birthday. His death certificate lists the cause of death as heart disease.

"His drinking caught up with him," Sanford said.

Marcelle was buried in Denver's Riverside Cemetery in an unmarked pauper's grave.

Sanford, a mortgage banker who formerly lived in New Orleans, said he'd heard about Marcelle during his studies of the Negro Leagues.

When he heard he was buried in an unmarked grave, Sanford started an effort that involved the Zephyrs, a minor league team that later moved from Denver to New Orleans, and the Colorado Rockies and culminated with a ceremony on June 1, 1991, where Marcelle's tombstone was unveiled.

The tombstone bears a quote from O'Neil: "Baseball's best Thirdbaseman brought professional baseball to Colorado."

"I was glad to see they did this for Ollie," O'Neil said. "He was out there in an unmarked grave."

 

[Butt Rubber]

Although he played for several teams during his career, Alexander "Alec" Radcliffe is best remembered as the slugging third baseman for the Chicago American Giants from 1936-39, 1941-44, and again in 1949. With his 40-ounce bat, Radcliffe set the record for most at bats and hits in the East-West All-Star game, and finished second behind Buck Leonard in RBIs. Radcliffe also played for the Chicago Giants and Cole's American Giants. After retiring from baseball, Radcliffe owned and ran a bar in Chicago. One of the bartenders was his brother, Double Duty. Some historians consider Alec to be the best third baseman to play in the Negro American League.

His brother (double duty) died recently

 

[Butt Rubber]

Two of baseball's greatest pitchers are captured in this wonderful photo. Satchel Paige, ace hurler of the New York Black Yankees is seen warming up at Yankee Stadium as retired Hall of Fame great Grover Alexander observes his form. Dated 5/11/41.

 

[Butt Rubber]

Long before he would become the Giants' Say Hey Kid, future Hall of Famer Willie Mays played with the Chatanooga Choo-Choos in 1946 briefly before he joined the Negro League Black Barons. Offered is Willie Mays' earliest known photo with an organized team in existence. Posing with the team he played with immediately after graduating high school, Mays is shown kneeling in the front row (middle) with his glove resting on his knee.

 

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1911 New York Lincoln Giants:

"New York Lincoln Giants, 1911 from their inaugural season. The Lincoln Giants were one of early Negro League baseball's greatest and most legendary teams. This club is credited with a 108-12 record in 1911, winning the first of three straight eastern championships. "Copyright 1911 by C. Mason Photo, N.Y." in the lower left. This team was managed by Sol White (center), and includes HOFer John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, (.475 average in 1911), Dick "Cannonball" Redding, Spot Poles, Louis Santop, Grant "Home Run" Johnson, and Dan McClellan (who threw the first perfect game in black baseball history for the 1903 Cuban X Giants). Half of this roster came from two other noted early teams, the 1903-04 Cuban X Giants and the 1905-06 Philadelphia Giants"

from www.nlbpa.com

 

[Butt Rubber]

Quincy Trouppe:

Trouppe was an all-star Negro League catcher who also performed in the Mexican League, Canadian Provincial League, and for the crack semi-pro Bismarck, ND club.

He played 14 winters in Latin America and barnstormed with black all-star teams playing white major leaguers. In the twilight of his career, he appeared in 6 games for the 1952 Cleveland Indians and 84 games for their Triple-A farm club.

A lifetime .300 hitter, he batted as high as .352 for Chicago in the 1948 Negro American League. He started for the West in five all-star games, four as a catcher in 1945-48.

He managed the Cleveland Buckeyes to NAL titles in 1945 and 1947. He was also a nationally recognized amateur boxer who won a major heavyweight tournament title in 1936

 

[Butt Rubber]

does anyone want me to revive this thread? I've got time now but I don't want to waste my time if nobody else cares

 

[Butt Rubber]

alot of my photos are gone