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The Newark Eagles were a professional Negro league baseball team which played in the Negro National League from 1936 to 1948. They were owned by Abe and Effa Manley.
Walter Fenner "Buck" Leonard was an American first baseman in Negro league baseball and in the Mexican League. After growing up in North Carolina,he played for the Homestead Grays between 1934 and 1950,batting fourth behind Josh Gibson for many years. The Grays teams of the 1930s and 1940s were considered some of the best teams in Negro league history. Leonard and Gibson are two of only nine players in league history to win multiple batting titles.
Willie James Wells,nicknamed "the Devil",was an American baseball player. He was a shortstop who played from 1924 to 1948 for various teams in the Negro leagues and in Latin America.
The Bacharach Giants were a Negro league baseball team that played in Atlantic City,New Jersey.
Louis Santop Loftin was an American baseball catcher in the Negro leagues. He became "one of the earliest superstars" and "black baseball's first legitimate home-run slugger" (Riley),and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. Some sources show a birth year of 1890,but his Navy records and Baseball Hall of Fame records support the earlier date.
The Dayton Marcos were a Negro league baseball team based from Dayton,Ohio that played during the early twentieth century.
William P. "Plunk" Drake was a Negro league baseball pitcher.
The Pittsburgh Keystones was the name of two historic professional Negro league baseball teams that operated in 1887 and again in 1921 and 1922. The first team was a member of the first black baseball league in 1887,the League of Colored Baseball Clubs. The league only lasted a week,which resulted in a 3-4 record for the Keystones,and included Weldy Walker,the second African-American to play in the major leagues and future hall of famer,Sol White.
JoséMaría Tranquilino Fernández Marín Sr. was a Cuban baseball catcher and manager in the Negro leagues from the 1910s to the 1940s.
Oscar "Heavy" Johnson (1895–1960) was a baseball player in the Negro leagues. He played catcher and outfielder. Johnson was one of the Negro league's foremost power hitters in the 1920s,reportedly weighing 250 pounds,and known for hitting home runs. Longtime MLB umpire Jocko Conlan once said that Johnson "could hit a ball out of any park."
Pollock's Cuban Stars were a traveling Negro league baseball team that played from about 1927 to 1936 featuring players primarily from Cuba.
The Memphis Red Sox were an American Negro league baseball team that was active from 1920 to 1959. Originally named the Barber College Baseball Club,the team was initially owned and operated by Arthur P. Martin,a local Memphis barber. In the late 1920s the Martin brothers,all three Memphis doctors and businessmen,purchased the Red Sox. J. B. Martin,W. S. Martin,and B. B. Martin,would retain control of the club till its dissolution in 1959. The Red Sox played as members,at various times,of the Negro Southern League,Negro National League,and Negro American League. The team was never a titan of the Negro leagues like wealthier teams in northern cities of the United States,but sound management led to a continuous thirty-nine years of operation,a span that was exceeded by very few other teams. Following integration the team had five players that would eventually make the rosters of Major League Baseball teams and two players that were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The following is a timeline of the evolution of major-league-caliber franchises in Negro league baseball. The franchises included are those of high-caliber independent teams prior to the organization of formal league play in 1920 and concludes with the dissolution of the remnant of the last major Negro league team,the Kansas City Monarchs then based out of Grand Rapids,Michigan,in about 1966. All teams who played a season while a member of a major Negro league are included. The major leagues are the original Negro National League,the Eastern Colored League,the American Negro League,the East–West League,the second Negro National League and the Negro American League. Teams from the 1932 original Negro Southern League are also included which allows for the inclusion of the few high caliber minor Negro league teams.
Joseph Beverly Spencer Jr. was an American Negro league second baseman in the 1940s.
Joseph Herman Lewis,nicknamed "Sleepy",was an American Negro league catcher in the 1920s and 1930s.
Reinaldo Verdes Drake,sometimes spelled "Dreke",is a Cuban former Negro league outfielder who played in the 1940s.
References
- ↑ Riley, James A. (1994). The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-0959-6.
- ↑ "Andy Drake Seamheads Profile". seamheads.com. Retrieved March 18, 2021.
