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. Born September 3, 1924 Bill Greason is the oldest player on this list. TRIBOU: The last league folded in the early 1960s. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. Turkey Stearnes. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. FORBES: Unfortunately, some of the good players, by the time that the time came, they were too old to play. Black players earnedless because they were Jim Crow'd. 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. Josh Gibson, Jackie Robinson's MLB Debut Bothered the Negro Leagues' Best Players "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. **For the best user experience, we recommend disabling the Reddit redesign. 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. Or write about sports? 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. The coming seasons brought many more signings. He jumped to the Lincoln Giants of the Eastern Colored League in 1923 and pitched with them for 2 years. Register now to join us on March 10-12, 2023, in Phoenix, AZ. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. What about the other great players? Of them, only 9 are still alive as of Janury 26, 2023. 2006 Negro League Baseball News December 17, 2006 - Willard Brown inducted to LA. March 10, 2007 - William "Bill' Van Buren passes away. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. They receivedbetween $1 to $1.50 a day for meal money. TRIBOU: Jackie Robinson played briefly in the Negro Leagues. When the book was being put together, the Negro Leagues weren't even considered for inclusion. Willie Wells: A .338 lifetime hitter, Willie Wells is often called the best shortstop to play in the black leagues. Remember these four names: Rev. Some defensive statistics Copyright Baseball Info Solutions, 2010-2022. Rogers was one of the few players, black or white, who hit Satchel Paige consistently well. America is about democracy and opportunity but it's also just as much about cash. Tipping their caps: paying homage to Negro Leagues on their 100th anniversary. \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. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. 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. A speedy switch-hitter, Newt writes that Martin Dihigo and Dave Brown were the two greatest pitchers he ever faced. Mike Trout nlbpa.com - News and Events The stories, however, keep alive the memory of a man who became bigger than the game. For families of Negro League players, MLB recognition is both In Cleveland, Larry Doby became the first Black player in the American League. Jackie Robinson had an immediate impact on baseball's short and long-term future. 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. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues after the Great Depression. Greatest Negro Leagues Players in Baseball History List of living major league players from the 1940s - BR Bullpen That means its taken countless hours of research to fill in the gaps and put together the database. "Going forward, in the 1930s following the Great Depression, salaries of Black players were about the same amount as the 1920s," Lester said. 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 Now a Los Angeles resident, Evans remembers playing against almost every great ballplayer, black and white, during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Negro Leagues history didn't survive on its own - Beyond the Box Score While the weeklies tried to cover every game they could, deadlines and limited space meant they often had to leave out a few games. Find out more. 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. It has been 47 years since anyone last saw this man. 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. Lists of Negro league baseball players - Wikipedia This is a list of the last handful of living major leaguers from the 1940s. , Every Sports Reference Social Media Account, Site Last Updated: Saturday, March 4, 12:52AM. Buck O'Neil - Society for American Baseball Research Streeters biggest thrill in baseball was to hit a home run. Please enable cookies on your browser and try again. List of Negro league baseball players (M-R) - Wikipedia The Negro League Players Hall of Fame | 100th Anniversary of the League Sports Reference . For NPR News, I'm Doug Tribou in Ann Arbor, Mich. (SOUNDBITE OF A FOREST MIGHTY BLACK'S "REBIRTH"). So the problem of whether Roosevelt Jackson is a veteran of the Negro Leagues is really one of semantics. A native of Texas, Brown is reported to have pitched as early as 1917 with the Dallas Black Giants. This data is based on actual contracts I have seen. Last I knew he was still alive but he is hard to contact sometimes. 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. Fortunately, that has recently changed with the recognition of the Negro Leagues as a Major League, but for decades that wasn't the case. I read Bill James in the 1980s, and I wanted a Negro League Baseball Abstract. January 29, 2007 - Ralph "Big Cat" Johnson passes away. Buck lives in Rocky Mount, N.C., where he owns a realty agency. 1933 Homestead Grays, NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. He says his greatest thrill was a home-run he hit in the 1940 classic in Chicago. 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. **, Press J to jump to the feed. Logos were compiled by the amazing SportsLogos.net. History Comes Alive At Honorary Negro Leagues Game As it stands, Newcombe is the oldest living man to play in the Negro Leagues at their major-league level. He continued his research with others like Kevin Johnson, Dan Hirsch, and Scott Simkus. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. 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. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues before the Great Depression. List of Negro league baseball players (M-R) This list consists of players who have appeared in Negro league baseball . Of these, nine have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and two of them (Greason and Mays) are still alive. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. 65 In 2000, Major League Baseball supplied a grant to the Baseball Hall of Fame to conduct . Pre-integration players. Allens best baseball memory is an unassisted triple play he made in the early 1930s. 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. All 3,400 players from 1920 to 1948 will be elevated to MLB status. Well Hank Aaron and Willie Mays are still alive. 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. 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. TRIBOU: Pedro Sierra pitched in the Negro Leagues for several seasons in the 1950s. His salary was less than 5% of what white players were earning. His career was spent almost entirely playing in all black minor or semi-pro leagues, most of which were located in southern Florida. After spotting the Black newspaper The Chicago Defender in his universitys library stacks and knowing its historical importance, he dove into the reels for the 1920 season and was surprised to see incredibly thorough coverage and box scores for the Negro National League.\n\nFrom there, he started collecting box scores and compiling statistics pretty much right away, Ashwill said. 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. All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. 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. Apocryphal stories surround Paige, who was born July 7, 1906 in Mobile, Ala. Ray Dandridge: Fifty-eight year old Ray Dandridge lives in Newark, N.J., and is a scout for the San Francisco Giants. Its also why there are always new updates. At 5'3", she hit .273 and pitched to a 33-8 record for the Indianapolis Clowns from 1953 to 1955. TRIBOU: And they did. SIERRA: Yeah, a hundred dollars a month. Paige, Satchel | Baseball Hall of Fame . 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. 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. In 1954, he signed with the Indianapolis Clowns at the age of 16. I remember reading about a living umpire from those times when he was interviewed, say, 3-5 years ago? 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. Nat remembers a 31-game hitting streak as his best moment in baseball. SIERRA: The Clowns are paid a hundred dollars a month. The leagues were full of talent and it went beyond the names you may know like Mays or Satchel Paige. All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC. the official stats partner of the NBA, NHL and MLB. Or write about sports? Eventually, these two groups joined forces to create one comprehensive database. MLB may recognize stats of Black players from apartheid era - Los Josh Gibson. 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. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Phoenix, AZ 85004 Forbes is 88 and worries about being one of the last left to tell this story. 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. Foster still retains a strong interest in baseball. List of Negro league baseball players who played in Major League Baseball. Some defensive statistics Copyright Sports Info Solutions, 2010-2023. It was this sense of mystery combined with an increasing confidence that in fact all kinds of evidence was there to be found. That means numbers are always changing here and there. 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.. Phone: 602.496.1460 At the onset of the digital age, enough now-aging players were still alive to share their experiences. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum estimates there are about 100 former players still alive. Mays played. In fact, that's my long-term goal: to write a Negro League Baseball Abstract. All these early leagues were financially shaky. 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.. Use without license or authorization is expressly prohibited. We present them here for purely educational purposes. 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. 1924 Kansas City Monarchs, That mission continues today. After spotting the Black newspaper The Chicago Defender in his universitys library stacks and knowing its historical importance, he dove into the reels for the 1920 season and was surprised to see incredibly thorough coverage and box scores for the Negro National League. 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). Holsey Lee: A great pitcher for over 20 years, Scrip Lee spent most of his long career in the Eastern Colored League. '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. Hall of Fame. Only a few members of the leagues are alive to celebrate the centennial. 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. 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. 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. 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. All rights reserved. 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. He began his professional career in the Negro Leagues in the 1920s after being discharged from reform school in Alabama. Paige, now 65 and a Kansas City resident, is by far the best known of these old stars. So they slept in the buses. Major League Baseball was segregated from 1887 through 1946. Copyright 2020 NPR. TRIBOU: Minnie Forbes owned the Detroit Stars from 1956 to 1958. 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. But there are a group of researchers led by Gary Ashwill who are looking to change that. 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. 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. This process is automatic. Many Old Negro League Stars Still Around - Society for American From there, he started collecting box scores and compiling statistics pretty much right away, Ashwill said. At that meeting, they created the Negro National League. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. Then in 1947, he broke baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Negro League players worthy of ESPN Hall of 100 Recovering it is a constant, ongoing struggle. I know it seems that the civil rights movement was a while go, but it's truly just recent. Newt still makes Kansas City his home. While the weeklies tried to cover every game they could, deadlines and limited space meant they often had to leave out a few games. Bill Greason, Clyde Golden, Ron Teasley and Willie Mays. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. Please enable JavaScript on your browser and try again. Suttles pictured back row, far left. You know the names: Satchel Paige. An additional 35 or so players played on a Negro league team after 1950. He played for the Louisville Clippers, and later was traded with Jesse Mitchell to the Birmingham Black Barons for a used team bus. You can't really settle on a few sacred numbers the way you can for MLB records.. To this day, no one apparently has any idea of his whereabouts or even whether he is still living. Baseball needs to retroactivelypay the newly recognized Negro League players and their surviving families. There's also Charley Pride (3/18/1935), famous country singer and one of the only black people to perform on Grand Ole Opry. List of Negro league baseball players who played in Major League Not even 60 years old. A high average hitter and an excellent first baseman, Buck played in 12 All-Star games. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. "Many of the players are gone, but their . MINNIE FORBES: It was terrible for the players at that time. They didn't care about making history. 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.). He says his greatest thrill was a home-run he hit in the 1940 classic in Chicago. 1920 Chicago American Giants, Aside from him, we also have Mamie "Peanut" Johnson (9/27/1935), the first female pitcher in the Negro Leagues. Born May 6, 1931, Willie Mays is the youngest. Keys bought the Giants franchise after the 1921 season and built the newly named Stars a stadium in '22. 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. In 2020, MLB recognized the Nego Leagues as major leagues. A native of Talladega, Alabama, Scales now lives in New York City. ***** Buck Leonard: Walter (Buck) Leonard combined with Josh Gibson for Negro baseballs best 1-2 home-run punch. There was Oscar Charleston who hit .400 multiple times. Today, stars like Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and Satchel Paige are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. 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. Jack Marshall: A star 2nd baseman for most of the top Chicago ballclubs, Jack still lives in the Windy City. 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. 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. 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. The museum has pushed back its year-long celebration of the centennial to next year and renamed it Negro Leagues 101. 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. TRIBOU: Bob Kendrick heads the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum there. This article originally appeared in the 1972 Baseball Research Journal. I was wondering if there are any players left from those times, There's actually a good amount. Negro League Baseball historical stats. That mission continues today.\n\nAnd I really do mean today. 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. His biggest thrill came in the 1924 Negro World Series when he shut out the Kansas City Monarchs for 7 innings in relief. 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. Are there any former Negro League players still living? Do you have a sports website? Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. 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. 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. Buck lives in Rocky Mount, N.C., where he owns a realty agency. He cites being selected to manage the East All-Star team in 1939 as his biggest moment. Negro League Stats and History | Baseball-Reference.com Lester said the average monthly salary of a Black player in the early 1920s was $175 a month. They are symbols for what should happen next. Michigan Radio's Doug Tribou spoke to the only surviving team owner and others about the legacy of the legendary leagues. 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. Buck O'Neil, Sign up to receive our daily Morning Lineup to stay in the know about the latest trending topics around Major League Baseball. Buck Leonard: Walter (Buck) Leonard combined with Josh Gibson for Negro baseball's best 1-2 home-run punch. Chuck Harmon played under alias of Charlie Fine for the Clowns so as not to violate his college basketball eligibility. The league ended in like 1950 so a 20 yr old then would be 86/7 this year. Buck O'Neil was devoted to keeping Negro Leagues memories alive - MLB.com Major League Baseball was segregated from 1887 through 1946. List of Negro league baseball players (A-D) List of Negro league baseball players (E-L) List of Negro league baseball players (M-R) List of Negro league baseball players (S-Z) Contents: M N O P Q R References He is Dean of Men at Alcorn College in Lorman, Mississippi, and also serves as baseball coach. Join our linker program.