Willie Foster: Called by many the greatest left-handed pitcher in the black leagues, Willie won 4 World Series games in his long career, and may be the only pitcher, black or white, to have pitched a complete 9-inning All-Star game. Suttles pictured back row, far left. From there, he started collecting box scores and compiling statistics pretty much right away, Ashwill said. We present them here for purely educational purposes. Keys bought the Giants franchise after the 1921 season and built the newly named Stars a stadium in '22. 1924 Kansas City Monarchs, In 1934, led by 20-year-old left-hander Slim Jones, the Stars defeated the Chicago American Giants in a controversial playoff series, four games to three, for the Negro National League pennant. The most important sources are the Black weekly newspapers (Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore Afro-American, Kansas City Call, etc.) Michigan Radio's Doug Tribou spoke to the only surviving team owner and others about the legacy of the legendary leagues. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Below is a list of 52 players who played for major Negro league teams up to 1950 and eventually saw playing time for a Major League team. December 15, 2006 - Medal of freedom awarded to Buck O'Neil. Many of the men that played in the last era of the Negro Leagues (1937-1957) died in the past 18 years, and a good portion in the past ten or eleven years. DOUG TRIBOU, BYLINE: In 1920, owners of independent Black baseball teams from the Midwest gathered in Kansas City, Mo. By the 1950s, enough black talent had integrated into the formerly "white" leagues (both major and minor) that the Negro leagues themselves had become a minor league circuit. Do you have a blog? The integration of Major League Baseball happened at the beginning of the 1947 MLB season when Jackie Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers.By the 1950s, enough black talent had integrated into the formerly "white" leagues (both major and minor) that the Negro leagues themselves had become a . Born September 3, 1924 Bill Greason is the oldest player on this list. Many thanks to him. TRIBOU: Pedro Sierra pitched in the Negro Leagues for several seasons in the 1950s. Those four names aren't just pieces of data, or clickable things on a site, they are human beings who excelled despiteliving under the thick anvilof segregation. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. ","type":"markdown"},{"__typename":"ExternalEmbed","data":{"__typename":"ExternalEmbedContent","html":", #Spotlight In February of 1920, The Chicago Defender previewed the formation of the Negro National League - Kansas City Selected for Meeting of Baseball Magnates - https://t.co/VANcXcLmL0 pic.twitter.com/KfBEDCalWr, A copy of the 1969 Macmillan baseball encyclopedia for show and tell @sabr. And I really do mean today. Following the 1924 season, he disappeared after a homicide in New York. Lee lives in Washington, D.C. George Scales: One of the strongest-hitting 2nd basemen of his time and a .311 lifetime hitter, George played in the big-time for nearly 25 years with 6 different clubs. Buck Leonard: Walter (Buck) Leonard combined with Josh Gibson for Negro baseball's best 1-2 home-run punch. Use Mays, Greason, Golden and Teasley as the faces of a compensation plan, like lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit, and account for what was a wide disparity in pay between Black and white players during those 28 years. Mike Trout Of them, only 9 are still alive as of Janury 26, 2023. Full-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. Today, stars like Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and Satchel Paige are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Its also why there are always new updates. The Encyclopedia and various books and projects over the years printed stats for a selection of Negro League stars," Ashwill explained -- picking and choosing what information to present, and often excluding players who appeared in fewer than 10 games. You know their stories, like how Paige once told his outfielders to sit down while he struck out the side. Much of the play-by-play, game results, and transaction information both shown and used to create certain data sets was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by RetroSheet. The list of teams with which he played includes the largely forgotten Miami Globetrotters, Hollywood Redbirds, Miami Red Sox, Belle Glade Redwings, Florida Cuban Giants, the Lucky Stars, the Danny Dodgers; Ft. Lauderdale Braves, Pompano Beach Yankees, Ft. Lauderdale Lucky Stars, Ft. Lauderdale Gray Sox, and the Buffalo Red Sox (a travelling team Use without license or authorization is expressly prohibited. Current Greats: Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, . Yet there was still a feeling that many more had been missed. There are a variety of reasons for that, Ashwill said, including a lack of capital and other resources, looser organization and less of a press infrastructure covering them.. Center for Negro League Baseball Research. Of these, nine have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and two of them (Greason and Mays) are still alive. He turns 100 on December 20th, 2017. After contacting Lester, co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and chairman of SABR's Negro Leagues Research Committee, he provided data that was absolutely staggering. Find out more. RHP Satchel Paige: The most famous Negro Leagues player, the age-defying Paige stayed young long enough to pitch in the majors -- including the World Series -- as a 42-year-old rookie in 1948. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. The second annual Honorary Negro League Game is a fundraiser for the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. Sign up to receive our daily Morning Lineup to stay in the know about the latest trending topics around Major League Baseball. We will also be adding the Puerto Rican Winter League at some point.. This page was last edited on 27 January 2023, at 00:27. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. TRIBOU: The last league folded in the early 1960s. the Negro Leagues weren't even considered. TRIBOU: Jackie Robinson played briefly in the Negro Leagues. An outfielder and a solid hitter, Page resides in Pittsburgh, where he operates a bowling alley. He played for the Louisville Clippers, and later was traded with Jesse Mitchell to the Birmingham Black Barons for a used team bus. The numbers do not do justice to his legend. Chicago Team History, All these early leagues were financially shaky. Our statistics are based on box scores and game stories found in contemporary newspapers, as well as the small number of scorebooks and filled-in scorecards that can be tracked down, Ashwill wrote. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Major League Baseball was segregated from 1887 through 1946. Copyright 2020 NPR. The color line in baseball is also probably the most profound case of historical injustice in the history of modern sports -- and the injustice most definitely includes the failure to properly record both the identities and the achievements of thousands of professional ballplayers., Before the Seamheads database, Negro League statistics were sparse and spottily updated. Marshall remembers occasionally playing 4 games a day when he was with the Philadelphia Stars and he says Satchel Paige was the fastest pitcher he ever saw. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. But you've got to establish a basic record first.. This data is based on actual contracts I have seen. This list comprises players who have appeared in Negro league baseball. I heard about it, but I hadn't experienced it. The list does not include Negro league players who only played in the minor leagues and White Hispanic players who played in both the Negro Leagues and MLB prior to full integration (ex. Join our linker program. Created a hundred years ago, the leagues showcased Black baseball players, players who couldn't play on the major teams because of the color of their skin. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. Because we compile fielding statistics, we're able to know that, for example, Dobie Moore, the Kansas City Monarchs shortstop in the 1920s, was a great fielding shortstop. The unparalleled Rube Foster started the first Negro League in 1920, with such dominant teams as the Chicago American Giants and the Kansas City Monarchs. The text below has been updated to reflect that. Scores from any date in Major League history, Minor, Foreign, College, & Black Baseball, Frequently Asked Questions about MLB and Baseball, Subscribe to Stathead Baseball: Get your first month FREE. Buck lives in Rocky Mount, N.C., where he owns a realty agency. O'Neil served as a representative of the Negro Leagues on the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee from 1981-2000, and 11 Negro Leagues players were inducted through 2001 for a total of 18. But thousands of Black and Latino players endured bigotry and racist taunts. Do you have a sports website? Some defensive statistics Copyright Sports Info Solutions, 2010-2023. Bill Greason, Clyde Golden, Ron Teasley and Willie Mays. This List of Negro league baseball players who played in Major League Baseball is largely based on the research compiled by the Center for Negro League Baseball Research. We already knew they were equals, of course, it's just official now. Newt still makes Kansas City his home. The stories, however, keep alive the memory of a man who became bigger than the game. This is not a complete or exhaustive list of all the organizations and individuals who have kept the Negro Leagues alive, but it is easy to contribute to the four following organizations whether . And in 2021, Baseball Reference, a trusted source for baseball stats, expanded its coverage of the Negro Leagues and integrated Negro League data from 1920 to 1948 into its record books. Although there are two players who played before 1946 none of them appeared in 1946, thus no players from 1946 are still alive. The star pitcher for the Chicago American Giants of the Negro National League in the early 1920s was a young left-hander named Dave Brown. ***** Paige was the first Negro League player inducted . You know the names: Satchel Paige. Chris Haughey is the last player alive from 1943 and Tommy Brown is the last player alive from 1944, 1945 and 1947. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. For our latest update I checked through the mainstream daily newspapers in St. Louis and picked up three more St. Louis Stars games -- and Suttles homered in two of them.","type":"markdown"},{"__typename":"PhotoPart","caption":"The 1930 St. Louis Stars. Recovering it is a constant, ongoing struggle. Mays played. Don Newcombe (6/14/1926) played one season for the Newark Eagles before being allowed to sign with the Dodgers, where he went on to become the first person to win MVP and Cy Young in the same season (1956, the first year the Cy Young was introduced). For our latest update I checked through the mainstream daily newspapers in St. Louis and picked up three more St. Louis Stars games -- and Suttles homered in two of them.. Just think, he was playing baseball on a team that would become the Homestead Grays years before the US entered World War 1, but he lived long enough to become a fan of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. In Cleveland, Larry Doby became the first Black player in the American League. Copyright 2000-2022 Sports Reference LLC. Do you have a sports website? Suttles pictured back row, far left. Then in 1947, he broke baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He is Dean of Men at Alcorn College in Lorman, Mississippi, and also serves as baseball coach. At that meeting, they created the Negro National League. But before Paige there was baseball's serial pay disparity. Remember these four names: Rev. "Going forward, in the 1930s following the Great Depression, salaries of Black players were about the same amount as the 1920s," Lester said. That's almost 19 times what the Black players received. Born May 6, 1931, Willie Mays is the youngest. Ray Brown, , 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords, However, he played for minor-league clubs: What Jackson did not do was to play in any of the all-black leagues traditionally thought of as the Negro Major Leagues. When the book was being put together, the Negro Leagues weren't even considered for inclusion. Major League Baseball has a day to honor the leagues set for next month. All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC. The leagues were full of talent and it went beyond the names you may know like Mays or Satchel Paige. Newt Allen: For 20 years, Newt starred as the Kansas City Monarchs slick-fielding 2nd baseman. A family friend used to play for the Black Yankees, Bob Scott. KENDRICK: These athletes never cried about the social injustice. Join our linker program. Since the Negro Leauges were still around several years after Jackie Robinson's debut, I would imagine there are still a few dozen former players who are still alive. Although Brown was never formally charged, there was not much question that the police suspected him. Rogers was one of the few players, black or white, who hit Satchel Paige consistently well. There was Oscar Charleston who hit .400 multiple times. There's also Charley Pride (3/18/1935), famous country singer and one of the only black people to perform on Grand Ole Opry. This process is automatic. TRIBOU: And they did. From 1940 to 1949, 1,705 men played at least one game in the National League or American League plus hundreds, maybe thousands, more in the Negro Leagues. That mission continues today.\n\nAnd I really do mean today. How Cool Papa Bell was so fast that he could hit the light switch and be in bed before the lights went out. Is there any way to possibly send a baseball to try and get signed by Biddle. "Many of the players are gone, but their . They also represent something else. "I always really, really wanted to get the full workup for those guys -- walks, on-base percentage, fielding stats, home runs allowed by pitchers -- so you could tell what kind of players they were, how they fit into their teams, how the teams compared to each other. Or write about sports? Remembered as one of the few hurlers Josh Gibson had trouble hitting against, Lee writes that Martin Dihigo was the greatest player he ever saw. Negro League Baseball historical stats. The records, as they proved with Suttles, are not static either. From 1940 to 1949, 1,705 men played at least one game in the National League or American League plus hundreds, maybe thousands, more in the Negro Leagues. I knew about it. As with any sports league, I have to assume that there are still plenty of unknown or lesser known players still out there. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. SIERRA: Yeah, a hundred dollars a month. Members were the Brooklyn (New York) Royal Giants, Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City, New Jersey, Baltimore Black Sox, Hilldale Club of Philadelphia, and the Cuban Stars (no relation to the Cuban Stars of the NNL) and Lincoln Giants of New York City. Ernie Banks and Monte Irvin died a couple years ago. 555 N. Central Ave. #416 Larry Doby debuted with the Cleveland Indians on July 5. Pittsburgh soon produced two of the greatest teams of all time, the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, featuring such stars as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and many more. There's a huge amount of information about Latin American baseball that still needs to be processed -- Black Americans played professional baseball in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, Ashwill said. All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only. As protests over racial injustice in the U.S. continue, Major League Baseball is marking the anniversary of the Negro Leagues. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Though there is more information on the Negro Leagues just a click away than ever before, there is still plenty of work to be done. At 5'3", she hit .273 and pitched to a 33-8 record for the Indianapolis Clowns from 1953 to 1955. During his long career, Frank played on 7 pennant-winners with the Kansas City Monarchs. Simkus says the work taught him how important major league recognition would be for the families of Negro Leagues veterans, few of whom are still alive. His biggest thrill came in the 1924 Negro World Series when he shut out the Kansas City Monarchs for 7 innings in relief. I was wondering if there are any players left from those times, There's actually a good amount. When I began speaking with Ashwill about the database in September, Hall of Fame slugger Mule Suttles held the Negro Leagues single-season home run record with the 30 that he hit as a member of the St. Louis Stars in 1926. Tipping their caps: paying homage to Negro Leagues on their 100th anniversary. A great 3rd baseman, Dandridge compiled a .455 batting average in 3 Negro All-Star games. They went out and did something about it. Of course, Josh Gibson and some of the other big names have passed on, but a lot of the legendary stars are still alive and well and living in well, why dont we call the roll of some of the more familiar names, men like . This article originally appeared in the 1972 Baseball Research Journal. Nat Rogers: Now 78 years old and a waiter at Memphis Peabody Hotel, Nat writes that he played for 45 consecutive seasons in organized baseball, compiling a batting average of over .340. , Season Summaries, Ballparks, Owners, Player Bios, 1946 Negro World Series, Contribute, A version of this story was first published in November, 2020, a few weeks before MLB announced that Negro League stats were being made part of the official record. Black players earnedless because they were Jim Crow'd. He continued his research with others like Kevin Johnson, Dan Hirsch, and Scott Simkus. Players he signed as a scout with Chicago then the Royals included Lou Brock, Oscar Gamble, Lee Smith and Joe Carter. A high average hitter and an excellent first baseman, Buck played in 12 All-Star games. Paige, now 65 and a Kansas City resident, is by far the best known of these old stars. Well Hank Aaron and Willie Mays are still alive. Phone: 602.496.1460 Born September 3, 1924 Bill Greason is the oldest player on this list. FORBES: And I just wonder if I'm worthy of representing, speaking about the Negro League because when I got involved, things was easier for me than it was for the one before me. Bell, who regularly went from 1st base to 3rd on sacrifice bunts, enjoyed his peak years with the St. Louis Stars and Pittsburgh Crawfords in the early 1930s. Turkey Stearnes. The other is that sources like the Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia -- which basically set the standard for baseball statistics when it was released in 1969 -- wasn't all that invested in featuring Negro League records. At the onset of the digital age, enough now-aging players were still alive to share their experiences. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Third baseman Hank Thompson appeared in a game for the St. Louis Browns (now the Baltimore Orioles) on July 17, two days before outfielder Willard Brown joined him on the Browns' roster. Negro League Players Who Made the Major Leagues Player Negro League Team Major League Team Debut Year Jackie Robinson Kansas City Monarchs Brooklyn Dodgers 1947 Larry Doby Newark Eagles Cleveland Indians 1947 Hank Thompson Kansas City Monarchs St. Louis Browns 1947 Willard Brown Kansas City Monarchs St. Louis Browns 1947 . Now 71, and a Pittsburgh resident, Sam says that Smokey Joe Williams was the greatest pitcher he ever saw while slugger Mule Suttles gave him the most trouble at the plate. He was known to be a great hitter, but I don't think it was fully appreciated how pivotal he was to the Monarchs' defense.. Some defensive statistics Copyright Baseball Info Solutions, 2010-2022. Forbes is 88 and worries about being one of the last left to tell this story. Hardball historians, however, are out there keeping the Negro Leagues alive. , Every Sports Reference Social Media Account, Site Last Updated: Saturday, March 4, 12:52AM. Find out more. Then I'll create my own. His salary was less than 5% of what white players were earning. Paige probably took a pay cut when he joined the Cleveland Indians in 1948.". Pedro Dibut). An excellent all-round ballplayer and a teammate of such greats as Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston, Jimmie is a Chicago resident where he is employed at the post office.
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list of negro league players still alive