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. As protests over racial injustice in the U.S. continue, Major League Baseball is marking the anniversary of the Negro Leagues. Copyright 2020 NPR. But you dont know their numbers -- at least, not with the same devotion baseball fans have to statistics like Ted Williams .406 batting average or Hank Aarons 755 home runs. In fact, that's my long-term goal: to write a Negro League Baseball Abstract. Many thanks to him. Among the most captivating features of Stars Park was the trolley car building that served as the left-field barrier. You know their stories, like how Paige once told his outfielders to sit down while he struck out the side. 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. If history belongs to the record keepers, then these record keepers weren't interested. The responsibility to elect Negro leagues players shifted to the Hall's Veterans Committee, but with Roy Campanella as the only Black member, the committee was hamstrung by its lack of knowledge . 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. Suttles pictured back row, far left. So they slept in the buses. Just having a few stories here and there was not remotely enough. While baseball acknowledgingthese Black players is important, it should only be a first step. TRIBOU: Jackie Robinson played briefly in the Negro Leagues. Recovering it is a constant, ongoing struggle. Ray Brown, , 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords, And I really do mean today. , Season Summaries, Ballparks, Owners, Player Bios, 1946 Negro World Series, Contribute, A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. His salary was less than 5% of what white players were earning. 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. The list includes those who played on major Negro league teams prior to integration (and any caliber Negro league team after integration) as well as in Major League Baseball. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. The leagues were full of talent and it went beyond the names you may know like Mays or Satchel Paige. His career was spent almost entirely playing in all black minor or semi-pro leagues, most of which were located in southern Florida. Cronkite School at ASU Chris Haughey is the last player alive from 1943 and Tommy Brown is the last player alive from 1944, 1945 and 1947. We still have to separate truth from hyperbole, but more analysis has become available. You will be redirected once the validation is complete. ***** Sam Streeter: The star pitcher for the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the 1930s, Sam pitched for the West in the inaugural Negro leagues All-Star game in 1933. 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. We present them here for purely educational purposes. The text below has been updated to reflect that. 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. 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. Michigan Radio's Doug Tribou spoke to the only surviving team owner and others about the legacy of the legendary leagues. Major League Players. Do you have a blog? I was wondering if there are any players left from those times, There's actually a good amount. As with any sports league, I have to assume that there are still plenty of unknown or lesser known players still out there. A lifetime .312 hitter, Ray remembers 1950 as a banner year when he was selected as MVP in the Triple-A American Association, while playing with the Minneapolis Millers. 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. Members of the Baseball Hall of Fame are noted with a . Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. The coming seasons brought many more signings. Over at the Seamheads Negro Leagues database, a dedicated few have combed through newspapers and scorebooks, photo albums and microfiche to piece together the most complete statistical record of the Negro Leagues to date. 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. What about the other great players? . I wanted to see them as flesh and blood people, real players who had the same kinds of complex profiles we have for players today. TRIBOU: Minnie Forbes owned the Detroit Stars from 1956 to 1958. Black players earnedless because they were Jim Crow'd. All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only. Paige probably took a pay cut when he joined the Cleveland Indians in 1948.". Center for Negro League Baseball Research, First black player for St. Louis Browns and New York Giants, First black player for Philadelphia Athletics, First black player for Pittsburgh Pirates, "Negro League Players Who Made the Major Leagues", "Negro Leaguers Who Served With The Armed Forces in WWII", List of Negro league baseball postseason games, Atlanta Black Crackers/Indianapolis ABCs (IV), Indianapolis ABCs (II)/New OrleansSt. Jackie Robinson had an immediate impact on baseball's short and long-term future. 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. TRIBOU: The last league folded in the early 1960s. 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. Streeters biggest thrill in baseball was to hit a home run. 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. 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. SIERRA: Yeah, a hundred dollars a month. He says his greatest thrill was a home-run he hit in the 1940 classic in Chicago. ", "So take a ballplayer like Monte Irvin, in 1948, who made $5,000 with the New YorkGiants," Lester said, "or $833.33 a month. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. This process is automatic. 555 N. Central Ave. #416 If you think white players made more money because they were more talented that's just false. Suttles pictured back row, far left. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. '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. Keys bought the Giants franchise after the 1921 season and built the newly named Stars a stadium in '22. 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. America is about democracy and opportunity but it's also just as much about cash. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. We already knew they were equals, of course, it's just official now. That means its taken countless hours of research to fill in the gaps and put together the database. Major League Baseball has finally decided that players from the Negro Leagues should be considered Major Leaguers. Copyright 2000-2022 Sports Reference LLC. 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. Silas Simmons played in the pre-Negro League era, and he passed away just a decade ago. Remember these four names: Rev. As it stands, Newcombe is the oldest living man to play in the Negro Leagues at their major-league level. I grew up with the distinct impression that no statistics could ever be compiled, that it was often unclear what happened at all, and that it was more or less impossible to find out anything for sure about many of the players., Our friends at Seamheads have added new 1926 statistics to their #SABR award-winning Negro Leagues Database, including a record-setting season by Mule Suttles: https://t.co/sCWIvkVMuB @scott_simkus @KJOKBASEBALL @DanHirsch pic.twitter.com/WlQhzB8q4u. 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. I read Bill James in the 1980s, and I wanted a Negro League Baseball Abstract. TRIBOU: And they did. The museum has pushed back its year-long celebration of the centennial to next year and renamed it Negro Leagues 101. She lives in Grand Rapids, Mich. FORBES: The players traveled, and they had nowhere to stay because of the discrimination. Now a Los Angeles resident, Evans remembers playing against almost every great ballplayer, black and white, during the late 1920s and early 1930s. They are symbols for what should happen next. He continued his research with others like Kevin Johnson, Dan Hirsch, and Scott Simkus. We present them here for purely educational purposes. Its also why there are always new updates. It was this sense of mystery combined with an increasing confidence that in fact all kinds of evidence was there to be found. "Going forward, in the 1930s following the Great Depression, salaries of Black players were about the same amount as the 1920s," Lester said. I heard about it, but I hadn't experienced it. Apocryphal stories surround Paige, who was born July 7, 1906 in Mobile, Ala. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues after the Great Depression. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum estimates there are about 100 former players still alive. 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. An outfielder and a solid hitter, Page resides in Pittsburgh, where he operates a bowling alley. Born average. Hardball historians, however, are out there keeping the Negro Leagues alive. TRIBOU: Today, Sierra lives in New Jersey. Following the 1924 season, he disappeared after a homicide in New York. 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. There would be the Royals dressed as the Monarchs, the Tigers as the Stars, the Pirates as the Crawfords or Grays, Triple-A Memphis as the Red Sox, Double-A Birmingham as the Black Barons, High-A. So the problem of whether Roosevelt Jackson is a veteran of the Negro Leagues is really one of semantics. 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. 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. 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.. The list includes those who played on major Negro league teams prior to integration (and any caliber Negro league team after integration) as well as in Major League Baseball. 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. With the game still years away from the multimillion-dollar contracts handed to star players, Aaron's annual pay in 1959 was around $30,000. the Negro Leagues weren't even considered. Find out more. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues before the Great Depression. Players he signed as a scout with Chicago then the Royals included Lou Brock, Oscar Gamble, Lee Smith and Joe Carter. And they couldn't go in places to eat, so one person would go to the back door and get the food for all the players. Newt still makes Kansas City his home. You can't really settle on a few sacred numbers the way you can for MLB records.. And now I look back and I say, oh, my God. 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. List of Negro league baseball players who played in Major League Baseball. Phoenix, AZ 85004 There was Oscar Charleston who hit .400 multiple times. 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. Then in 1947, he broke baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He says, faced with segregation, Black owners and players kept pushing for organized baseball. Not even 60 years old. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. He turns 100 on December 20th, 2017. The records, as they proved with Suttles, are not static either. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. FORBES: Unfortunately, some of the good players, by the time that the time came, they were too old to play. Ted Page: Ted starred with the great Josh Gibson on the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays in the 1930s. Find out more. 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. Tipping their caps: paying homage to Negro Leagues on their 100th anniversary. He now operates a sporting goods store on the South Side. 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. It's just that you rarely get where are they nows on the guys who played 3-4 forgettable seasons,whether they were in 1930s or 1990s. Meanwhile you still have jackalopes foaming at the mouth that girls shouldn't be allowed to play high school ball. Mike Trout But you've got to establish a basic record first.. Ray Dandridge: Fifty-eight year old Ray Dandridge lives in Newark, N.J., and is a scout for the San Francisco Giants. Sports Reference . The most important sources are the Black weekly newspapers (Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore Afro-American, Kansas City Call, etc.) 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. 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. Major leagueplayersreceived from $300 to $2,000 a month and about $15 a day for meals. Rookies earned $75 and the stars $375. Contact SABR, https://sabr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/research-collection4_350x300.jpg, /wp-content/uploads/2020/02/sabr_logo.png. 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. Ernie Banks and Monte Irvin died a couple years ago. Willie Wells: A .338 lifetime hitter, Willie Wells is often called the best shortstop to play in the black leagues. Today . 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. Negro League Baseball historical stats. Is there any way to possibly send a baseball to try and get signed by Biddle. Data Provided By Leroy "Satchel" Paige was bigger than mere numbers. Ted says shortstop John Henry Lloyd was the greatest ballplayer he ever saw. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. Please enable cookies on your browser and try again. He grew up in Cuba and says it was tough to adjust to segregation and racism he saw in the U.S. PEDRO SIERRA: It wasn't easy to see all the problems with the race. Of these, nine have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and two of them (Greason and Mays) are still alive. Researchers are still looking to add fielding statistics, left/right splits and secondary pitching and batting stats for many Negro League seasons, especially those in the 1940s. That's about five times more in salary than Black players. During his long career, Frank played on 7 pennant-winners with the Kansas City Monarchs. Every Sports Reference Social Media Account. You know the names: Satchel Paige. They didn't care about making history. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. Holsey Lee: A great pitcher for over 20 years, Scrip Lee spent most of his long career in the Eastern Colored League. He is Dean of Men at Alcorn College in Lorman, Mississippi, and also serves as baseball coach. Dennis Biddle lives down the street from my grandparents. 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 He continued his research with others like Kevin Johnson, Dan Hirsch, and Scott Simkus. We know which were the pitchers' parks (Chicago's Schorling Park, for example) and which were the hitters' parks (Stars Park in St. Louis and the Catholic Protectory Oval in the Bronx, home of the New York Lincoln Giants). 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. His biggest thrill came in the 1924 Negro World Series when he shut out the Kansas City Monarchs for 7 innings in relief. Fortunately, that has recently changed with the recognition of the Negro Leagues as a Major League, but for decades that wasn't the case. Just a humbling reminder that Jim Crow laws and segregation was less than a generation ago. 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. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Phone: 602.496.1460 From there, he started collecting box scores and compiling statistics pretty much right away, Ashwill said. 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. We will also be adding the Puerto Rican Winter League at some point.. So you won't let me play with you. \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. Buck lives in Rocky Mount, N.C., where he owns a realty agency. 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. He says his greatest thrill was a home-run he hit in the 1940 classic in Chicago. An additional 35 or so players played on a Negro league team after 1950. 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. 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.). A native of Talladega, Alabama, Scales now lives in New York City. Among them Fowler, Frank Grant, George Stovey, and Fleet Walker were notable players especially during the 1880s, before complete segregation. Born September 3, 1924 Bill Greason is the oldest player on this list. Pre-integration players. Josh Gibson. 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. 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. 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. 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 WANTED: INFORMATION ON DAVE BROWN. You knew the disparity in pay would be bad, but that gap is embarrassing for baseball. Newt Allen: For 20 years, Newt starred as the Kansas City Monarchs slick-fielding 2nd baseman. For NPR News, I'm Doug Tribou in Ann Arbor, Mich. (SOUNDBITE OF A FOREST MIGHTY BLACK'S "REBIRTH").
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list of negro league players still alive