He says, faced with segregation, Black owners and players kept pushing for organized baseball. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. 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). 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. 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. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. How Cool Papa Bell was so fast that he could hit the light switch and be in bed before the lights went out. As Lou Moore, a professor at Grand Valley State University, noted: from 1949 to 1959 - two years after Jackie Robinson's debut season - former Negro League players won all but two of the. Suttles pictured back row, far left. Ted says shortstop John Henry Lloyd was the greatest ballplayer he ever saw. Or write about sports? 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. One of two players in history to win the Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and MVP in his career (Verlander being the other). 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. Today, stars like Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and Satchel Paige are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. 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 . 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. Major League Baseball was segregated from 1887 through 1946. 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. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. Newt still makes Kansas City his home. But before Paige there was baseball's serial pay disparity. Born May 6, 1931, Willie Mays is the youngest. All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC. Willie Wells: A .338 lifetime hitter, Willie Wells is often called the best shortstop to play in the black leagues. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. So the problem of whether Roosevelt Jackson is a veteran of the Negro Leagues is really one of semantics. 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. The coming seasons brought many more signings. But thousands of Black and Latino players endured bigotry and racist taunts. His salary was less than 5% of what white players were earning. 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. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. If baseball (rightfully) believes that recognizing those players is important (and it is) then why not fully recognize them? As it stands, Newcombe is the oldest living man to play in the Negro Leagues at their major-league level. That's about five times more in salary than Black players. Hardball historians, however, are out there keeping the Negro Leagues alive. 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. Mays played. We still have to separate truth from hyperbole, but more analysis has become available. Rookies earned $75 and the stars $375. 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. 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." 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. Buck Leonard: Walter (Buck) Leonard combined with Josh Gibson for Negro baseballs best 1-2 home-run punch. If history belongs to the record keepers, then these record keepers weren't interested. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. I believe the oldest living Negro League ballplayer is Roosevelt Jackson. Find out more. In 1924, the first year of the Colored World Series, the share of the winners, the Kansas City Monarchs, was $307.96, says Lester. The leagues were full of talent and it went beyond the names you may know like Mays or Satchel Paige. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. TRIBOU: Minnie Forbes owned the Detroit Stars from 1956 to 1958. Lester said the average monthly salary of a Black player in the early 1920s was $175 a month. 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. All 3,400 players from 1920 to 1948 will be elevated to MLB status. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues after the Great Depression. Among the most captivating features of Stars Park was the trolley car building that served as the left-field barrier. You will be redirected once the validation is complete. 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. 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. March 16, 2007 - Hubert "Country" Glenn, passes away. 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. Sign up to receive our daily Morning Lineup to stay in the know about the latest trending topics around Major League Baseball. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. SIERRA: Yeah, a hundred dollars a month. Paige was the first Negro League player inducted . Following the 1924 season, he disappeared after a homicide in New York. The league ended in like 1950 so a 20 yr old then would be 86/7 this year. Just a humbling reminder that Jim Crow laws and segregation was less than a generation ago. 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.. For NPR News, I'm Doug Tribou in Ann Arbor, Mich. (SOUNDBITE OF A FOREST MIGHTY BLACK'S "REBIRTH"). Join our linker program. 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 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. 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. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues before the Great Depression. Richard Kent, Sam Sheppard, Dr. J.W McClelland and Dr. G.B. 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. 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. January 29, 2007 - Ralph "Big Cat" Johnson passes away. 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. TRIBOU: The last league folded in the early 1960s. Black players earnedless because they were Jim Crow'd. A speedy switch-hitter, Newt writes that Martin Dihigo and Dave Brown were the two greatest pitchers he ever faced. Ray Dandridge: Fifty-eight year old Ray Dandridge lives in Newark, N.J., and is a scout for the San Francisco Giants. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. 1928 St. Louis Stars, Of them, only 9 are still alive as of Janury 26, 2023. 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 . cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. The service requires full cookie support in order to view this website. Paige probably took a pay cut when he joined the Cleveland Indians in 1948.". 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. The text below has been updated to reflect 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. Born September 3, 1924 Bill Greason is the oldest player on this list. While baseball acknowledgingthese Black players is important, it should only be a first step. List of Negro league baseball players who played in Major League Baseball. All rights reserved. ","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. Contact SABR, https://sabr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/research-collection4_350x300.jpg, /wp-content/uploads/2020/02/sabr_logo.png. By August 1, 1947, three Major League teams had already integrated. 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. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. And now I look back and I say, oh, my God. Michigan Radio's Doug Tribou spoke to the only surviving team owner and others about the legacy of the legendary leagues. 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. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Do you have a blog? 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. 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. Frank Duncan: A Kansas City native, Frank, 69, now operates a tavern in his home town. We present them here for purely educational purposes. He stopped playing baseball when he was younger and became a Mason I believe. They receivedbetween $1 to $1.50 a day for meal money. I was wondering if there are any players left from those times, There's actually a good amount. 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. 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. Eventually, these two groups joined forces to create one comprehensive database. They went out and did something about it. There's also Charley Pride (3/18/1935), famous country singer and one of the only black people to perform on Grand Ole Opry. He began his professional career in the Negro Leagues in the 1920s after being discharged from reform school in Alabama. He . MINNIE. 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 . While the weeklies tried to cover every game they could, deadlines and limited space meant they often had to leave out a few games. "Going forward, in the 1930s following the Great Depression, salaries of Black players were about the same amount as the 1920s," Lester said. During his long career, Frank played on 7 pennant-winners with the Kansas City Monarchs. 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. Baseball needs to retroactivelypay the newly recognized Negro League players and their surviving families. His career was spent almost entirely playing in all black minor or semi-pro leagues, most of which were located in southern Florida. KENDRICK: These athletes never cried about the social injustice. Copyright 2020 NPR. To this day, no one apparently has any idea of his whereabouts or even whether he is still living. WANTED: INFORMATION ON DAVE BROWN. 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. Leroy "Satchel" Paige was bigger than mere numbers. Ted Page: Ted starred with the great Josh Gibson on the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays in the 1930s. Cronkite School at ASU 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. Tipping their caps: paying homage to Negro Leagues on their 100th anniversary. As with any sports league, I have to assume that there are still plenty of unknown or lesser known players still out there. Copyright 2000-2023 Sports Reference LLC. 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. Some defensive statistics Copyright Sports Info Solutions, 2010-2023. 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. March 10, 2007 - William "Bill' Van Buren passes away. Today . Join our linker program. 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. 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. 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. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. He turns 100 on December 20th, 2017. Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction? **For the best user experience, we recommend disabling the Reddit redesign. 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. Although there are two players who played before 1946 none of them appeared in 1946, thus no players from 1946 are still alive. Register now to join us on March 10-12, 2023, in Phoenix, AZ. Buck lives in Rocky Mount, N.C., where he owns a realty agency. '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. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. That means numbers are always changing here and there. 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. 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. Wells, 66, is a New York City resident. Buck O'Neil, 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. A native of Texas, Brown is reported to have pitched as early as 1917 with the Dallas Black Giants. Jack Marshall: A star 2nd baseman for most of the top Chicago ballclubs, Jack still lives in the Windy City. As protests over racial injustice in the U.S. continue, Major League Baseball is marking the anniversary of the Negro Leagues. Use without license or authorization is expressly prohibited. I heard about it, but I hadn't experienced it. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. Apocryphal stories surround Paige, who was born July 7, 1906 in Mobile, Ala. It has been 47 years since anyone last saw this man. Chicago Team History, 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. 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.). Larry Doby debuted with the Cleveland Indians on July 5. So, for example we've put together the first comprehensive analysis of Negro League park effects, and incorporated that into our metrics, Ashwill wrote. Eventually, these two groups joined forces to create one comprehensive database. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues after the Great Depression. But more interesting, in my opinion, are some of the larger patterns we've found. Major leagueplayersreceived from $300 to $2,000 a month and about $15 a day for meals. Last I knew he was still alive but he is hard to contact sometimes. Of these, nine have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and two of them (Greason and Mays) are still alive. He says his greatest thrill was a home-run he hit in the 1940 classic in Chicago. Find out more. I know it seems that the civil rights movement was a while go, but it's truly just recent. 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. You know their stories, like how Paige once told his outfielders to sit down while he struck out the side. 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. Mioso fell short on Golden Era votes in 2011 and 2014 . A native of Talladega, Alabama, Scales now lives in New York City. SIERRA: The Clowns are paid a hundred dollars a month. Major League Baseball announced this week the 1920-1948 Negro Leagues was recognized as major league, meaning Black players who played during those years are officially acknowledgedas the same as their white counterparts. 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. Logos were compiled by the amazing SportsLogos.net. 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. A good right-handed hitter, Duncan is always mentioned as one of black baseballs best catchers. "Many of the players are gone, but their . TRIBOU: And they did. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum estimates there are about 100 former players still alive. 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. 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. Do you have a sports website? All rights reserved. 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). Sports Reference . Please enable cookies on your browser and try again.