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. the official stats partner of the NBA, NHL and MLB. 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. Soon he became involved in the Negro League Researchers and Authors Group and helped with an extensive study commissioned by the Hall of Fame and Major League Baseball. You know their stories, like how Paige once told his outfielders to sit down while he struck out the side. But more interesting, in my opinion, are some of the larger patterns we've found. All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC. The World Series winners that same year earned $5,959.64 and the losers $3,820.29. Logos were compiled by the amazing SportsLogos.net. This article was written byJohn M. Coates, This article was published in 1972 Baseball Research Journal, The recent election of Satchel Paige to the Hall of Fame brings back memories of the old Negro leagues and the men who starred in them. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. His career was spent almost entirely playing in all black minor or semi-pro leagues, most of which were located in southern Florida. 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. The service requires full JavaScript support in order to view this website. 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 will also be adding the Puerto Rican Winter League at some point.. There was Oscar Charleston who hit .400 multiple times. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Its also why there are always new updates. I know it seems that the civil rights movement was a while go, but it's truly just recent. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. 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. And now I look back and I say, oh, my God. March 10, 2007 - William "Bill' Van Buren passes away. 2006 Negro League Baseball News December 17, 2006 - Willard Brown inducted to LA. In 1924, the first year of the Colored World Series, the share of the winners, the Kansas City Monarchs, was $307.96, says Lester. But Minnie Forbes sympathizes with the many athletes who were good enough to play in the major leagues but never got a shot. Now a Los Angeles resident, Evans remembers playing against almost every great ballplayer, black and white, during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. He cites being selected to manage the East All-Star team in 1939 as his biggest moment. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. 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. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum estimates there are about 100 former players still alive. Tipping their caps: paying homage to Negro Leagues on their 100th anniversary. 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. KENDRICK: These athletes never cried about the social injustice. Last I knew he was still alive but he is hard to contact sometimes. 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 . 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 . 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. Among them Fowler, Frank Grant, George Stovey, and Fleet Walker were notable players especially during the 1880s, before complete segregation. Join our linker program. 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. March 16, 2007 - Hubert "Country" Glenn, passes away. As protests over racial injustice in the U.S. continue, Major League Baseball is marking the anniversary of the Negro Leagues. Although there are two players who played before 1946 none of them appeared in 1946, thus no players from 1946 are still alive. List of Negro league baseball players who played in Major League Baseball. His biggest thrill came in the 1924 Negro World Series when he shut out the Kansas City Monarchs for 7 innings in relief. Hank Aaron and Willie Mays also began their careers in the Negro Leagues. For NPR News, I'm Doug Tribou in Ann Arbor, Mich. (SOUNDBITE OF A FOREST MIGHTY BLACK'S "REBIRTH"). Louis Stars, Southern League of Colored Base Ballists (1886), International League of Independent Professional Base Ball Clubs (1906), National Association of Colored Baseball Clubs of the United States and Cuba (19071909), West Coast Negro Baseball Association (1946), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Negro_league_baseball_players_who_played_in_Major_League_Baseball&oldid=1137262492, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Served in the US Army during WWII 19421944, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19441945, Served in the US Army during WWII 19441945, Served in the US Marine Corp during WWII 19431945, Served in the US Army during Korean War 19521953, Served in the US Army during WWII 19431945, Served in the US Army during WWII 19421943, Served in the US Army during WWII 19411945, Served in the US Army during WWII 19441946, Served in the US Army during WWII 19431947, Served in the US Army during WWII 19431946, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19441946, Served in the US Army during Korean War 19511953, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19431946, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19431945, Served in the US Marine Corp during WWII 19431945 and the Korean War 19511952, Served in the US Army during Korean War 19511952, Served in the US Army during WWII 19421945, This page was last edited on 3 February 2023, at 18:10. Center for Negro League Baseball Research. Newt Allen: For 20 years, Newt starred as the Kansas City Monarchs slick-fielding 2nd baseman. Now 66, Bell lives in St. Louis where he is a guard at City Hall. Born September 3, 1924 Bill Greason is the oldest player on this list. Like O'Neil, Minnie Mioso was still alive when he was denied entry in 2006, mostly because his time was so short in the Negro Leagues. Just this month, and nearly 80 years after Suttles career ended, Ashwill was able to add two more home runs to his tally, bringing his total to 32.\n\nBasically, our earlier version of the 1926 Negro National League relied heavily on the Black weekly newspapers for games played in St. Louis -- in this case the Chicago Defender (which was distributed nationally) and the St. Louis Argus, Ashwill wrote. Recovering it is a constant, ongoing struggle. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. Please enable JavaScript on your browser and try again. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. 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.. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. FORBES: Unfortunately, some of the good players, by the time that the time came, they were too old to play. But thousands of Black and Latino players endured bigotry and racist taunts. 'THEY TRULY DESERVE IT:'Families of Negro Leaguers rejoice in MLB's decision to recognize league, OPINION: After vowing change, Black candidates shut out again of MLB front office jobs. Aside from him, we also have Mamie "Peanut" Johnson (9/27/1935), the first female pitcher in the Negro Leagues. Hardball historians, however, are out there keeping the Negro Leagues alive. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. 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 and many . Satchel Paige, 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. ","contextualCaption":null,"contextualAspectRatio":null,"credit":null,"format":"jpg","templateUrl":"https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/{formatInstructions}/v1605643461/mlb/lv9mhm1fsyjmr30kii4r","type":"photo"},{"__typename":"Markdown","content":"Thats the type of work that Ashwill, who currently works as a freelance academic editor and runs the Agate Type baseball blog, has done since he began researching the Negro Leagues 20 years ago. Major leagueplayersreceived from $300 to $2,000 a month and about $15 a day for meals. Dan Bankhead Sam Bankhead Bob Boyd Ray Brown Willard Brown Bill Byrd Roy Campanella Buster Clarkson Jimmie Crutchfield Ray Dandridge Leon Day Larry Doby Luke Easter Wilmer Fields Josh Gibson Junior Gilliam Sammy Hughes Monte Irvin The second annual Honorary Negro League Game is a fundraiser for the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. If baseball (rightfully) believes that recognizing those players is important (and it is) then why not fully recognize them? As protests over racial injustice in the U.S. continue, Major League Baseball is honoring the Negro Leagues that showcased Black baseball players at a time the sport was segregated. Some defensive statistics Copyright Baseball Info Solutions, 2010-2022. For example, here, courtesy of Ashwill, are the pages from a 1941-42 Baltimore Elite Giants scorebook showing the Elites beating the Philadelphia Stars on Aug. 16, 1942: The biggest myth of them all is that the history of Negro League baseball is nothing but blurry, hard-to-substantiate legends and tall tales, Ashwill wrote in an email to MLB.com. A great 3rd baseman, Dandridge compiled a .455 batting average in 3 Negro All-Star games. That mission continues today. The complete list is divided into four pages to reduce the size: The players below are some of the most notable of those who played Negro league baseball, beginning with the codification of baseball's color line barring African American players (about 1892), past the re-integration in 1946 of the sport, up until the Negro leagues finally expired about 1962. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. That means its taken countless hours of research to fill in the gaps and put together the database. 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. Apocryphal stories surround Paige, who was born July 7, 1906 in Mobile, Ala. Many thanks to him. His salary was less than 5% of what white players were earning. TRIBOU: Bob Kendrick heads the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum there. 1920 Chicago American Giants, All rights reserved. The leagues were full of talent and it went beyond the names you may know like Mays or Satchel Paige. December 15, 2006 - Medal of freedom awarded to Buck O'Neil. A lot of the earlier versions of Negro league statistics only gave you batting averages, home runs, pitchers' won-lost records, basic stuff," Ashwill said. Major League Baseball announced this week the 1920-1948 Negro Leagues was recognized as major league, Families of Negro Leaguers rejoice in MLB's decision to recognize league, After vowing change, Black candidates shut out again of MLB front office jobs, Oscar Charleston who hit .400 multiple times, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Founded in 1990, the museum is the only one in the world . America's Pastime. This page was last edited on 27 January 2023, at 00:27. TRIBOU: Minnie Forbes will keep sharing her stories with younger generations, and others will, too. 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. But there are a group of researchers led by Gary Ashwill who are looking to change that. Find out more. When the book was being put together, the Negro Leagues weren't even considered for inclusion. The coming seasons brought many more signings. 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.. A good right-handed hitter, Duncan is always mentioned as one of black baseballs best catchers. Ray Dandridge: Fifty-eight year old Ray Dandridge lives in Newark, N.J., and is a scout for the San Francisco Giants. While there are roughly 130 players alive from the Negro Leagues, according to baseball historian Larry Lester, only those four players are alive from that 1920-1948 window. I have always been drawn to blank spaces on maps, blank spaces in record books, Ashwill said. Today . Just having a few stories here and there was not remotely enough. At the onset of the digital age, enough now-aging players were still alive to share their experiences. Turkey Stearnes. Major League Baseball was segregated from 1887 through 1946. From there, he started collecting box scores and compiling statistics pretty much right away, Ashwill said. Among the most captivating features of Stars Park was the trolley car building that served as the left-field barrier. An additional 35 or so players played on a Negro league team after 1950. They are symbols for what should happen next. Chris Haughey is the last player alive from 1943 and Tommy Brown is the last player alive from 1944, 1945 and 1947. The most important sources are the Black weekly newspapers (Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore Afro-American, Kansas City Call, etc.) List of Negro league baseball players (AD), List of Negro league baseball players (EL), List of Negro league baseball players (MR), List of Negro league baseball players (SZ), List of first black MLB players by team and date, List of player profiles from the Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lists_of_Negro_league_baseball_players&oldid=1087987010, This page was last edited on 15 May 2022, at 16:27. But before Paige there was baseball's serial pay disparity. The stories, however, keep alive the memory of a man who became bigger than the game. Then I'll create my own. One of two players in history to win the Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and MVP in his career (Verlander being the other). The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Do you have a blog? Buck lives in Rocky Mount, N.C., where he owns a realty agency. In Cleveland, Larry Doby became the first Black player in the American League. I knew about it. While baseball acknowledgingthese Black players is important, it should only be a first step. 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. Mike Trout 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 that appears to have played many of its games in West Virginia and Pennsylvania). She lives in Grand Rapids, Mich. FORBES: The players traveled, and they had nowhere to stay because of the discrimination. They also decided not to count the interleague games which were an important part of Negro League seasons, especially in the 1940s. (Though many seasons featured approximately 50 league games, "Negro League teams played 150-175 games a year overall -- the rest of the schedule being filled up with games against white semi-pro teams, lower-level Minor Leaguers, minor Black teams, and other teams whose games we haven't counted yet," Ashwill explained.). Copyright 2020 NPR. 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. They receivedbetween $1 to $1.50 a day for meal money. Josh Gibson. Black players earnedless because they were Jim Crow'd. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. That means numbers are always changing here and there. Chicago Team History, Paige, now 65 and a Kansas City resident, is by far the best known of these old stars. Full-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. Then in 1947, he broke baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Mays played. I believe the oldest living Negro League ballplayer is Roosevelt Jackson. 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. TRIBOU: And they did. Names of those who played in integrated organized white leagues are boldfaced, and those who played in integrated major leagues are also italicized. TRIBOU: Minnie Forbes owned the Detroit Stars from 1956 to 1958. All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC. 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. List of living major league players from the 1940s, List of living members of World Series-winning teams, List of living major league players from the 1950s, https://www.baseball-reference.com/bpv/index.php?title=List_of_living_major_league_players_from_the_1940s&oldid=1264856, Scores from any date in Major League history, Minor, Foreign, College, & Black Baseball, Frequently Asked Questions about MLB and Baseball. Frank Duncan: A Kansas City native, Frank, 69, now operates a tavern in his home town. BOB KENDRICK: They had no idea they were making history. He continued his research with others like Kevin Johnson, Dan Hirsch, and Scott Simkus. Holsey Lee: A great pitcher for over 20 years, Scrip Lee spent most of his long career in the Eastern Colored League. Sports Pulse: Players, celebs and politicians tip their hats in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues. An additional 35 or so players played on a Negro league team after 1950. 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. This data is based on actual contracts I have seen. This process is automatic. Born May 6, 1931, Willie Mays is the youngest. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Jimmie Crutchfield: A slender outfielder, Jimmie signed with the great Pittsburgh Crawfords when he was only 19 years old. Of these, nine have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and two of them (Greason and Mays) are still alive. While there are roughly 130 players alive from the Negro Leagues, according to baseball historian Larry Lester, only those four players are alive from that 1920-1948 window. Of them, only 9 are still alive as of Janury 26, 2023. All rights reserved. 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. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. That mission continues today.\n\nAnd I really do mean today. A charity baseball game that paid tribute to the Negro Leagues and their significance to the sport was held at Sacramento State's John Smith Field on Oct. 9. ", "So take a ballplayer like Monte Irvin, in 1948, who made $5,000 with the New YorkGiants," Lester said, "or $833.33 a month. Rogers was one of the few players, black or white, who hit Satchel Paige consistently well. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. **, Press J to jump to the feed. What about the other great players? Or write about sports? The 1930 St. Louis Stars. \n","providerName":"Twitter","providerUrl":"https://twitter.com","type":"rich","width":550},"type":"oembed"},{"__typename":"Markdown","content":"That started to change in the 1980s and early 90s as researchers like Dick Clark, Larry Lester, John Holway, James Riley and Phil Dixon began assembling a more robust statistical record. So you won't let me play with you. To this day, no one apparently has any idea of his whereabouts or even whether he is still living. 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. 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. Born May 6, 1931, Willie Mays is the youngest. 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. 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.. Accuracy and availability may vary. 555 N. Central Ave. #416 . Pre-integration players. Eventually, these two groups joined forces to create one comprehensive database. That started to change in the 1980s and early 90s as researchers like Dick Clark, Larry Lester, John Holway, James Riley and Phil Dixon began assembling a more robust statistical record. O'Neil also made history when the Cubs hired him as a coach in 1962, making him the first Black member of an AL/NL coaching staff as part of Chicago's "College of Coaches." I first saw this idea mentioned in one sentence in a Deadspin story and wondered why this wasn't something discussed much more than it has been. Josh Gibson holds the all-time home run record with 238 and Smokey Joe Williams struck out 1,571 batters in his 25-year career. , Season Summaries, Ballparks, Owners, Player Bios, 1946 Negro World Series, Contribute, 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. I was wondering if there are any players left from those times, There's actually a good amount. Major League Baseball was segregated from 1887 through 1946. Newt still makes Kansas City his home. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues after the Great Depression. The records, as they proved with Suttles, are not static either. 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. Win Expectancy, Run Expectancy, and Leverage Index calculations provided by Tom Tango of InsideTheBook.com, and co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Basically, our earlier version of the 1926 Negro National League relied heavily on the Black weekly newspapers for games played in St. Louis -- in this case the Chicago Defender (which was distributed nationally) and the St. Louis Argus, Ashwill wrote. It was this sense of mystery combined with an increasing confidence that in fact all kinds of evidence was there to be found. He is Dean of Men at Alcorn College in Lorman, Mississippi, and also serves as baseball coach. While the weeklies tried to cover every game they could, deadlines and limited space meant they often had to leave out a few games. TRIBOU: Pedro Sierra pitched in the Negro Leagues for several seasons in the 1950s. And I really do mean today. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues after the Great Depression. Ray Brown, , 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords, Paige probably took a pay cut when he joined the Cleveland Indians in 1948.". In 2020, MLB recognized the Nego Leagues as major leagues. Fortunately, that has recently changed with the recognition of the Negro Leagues as a Major League, but for decades that wasn't the case. 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. Keys bought the Giants franchise after the 1921 season and built the newly named Stars a stadium in '22. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues before the Great Depression. 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. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. Born average. "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.