The Farnham Pirates were a minor league baseball team located in Farnham, Quebec, Canada. They played in the Provincial League from 1948 to 1951. [1] The team was managed by Sam Bankhead, who was a player-manager. [2] He was the first black coach in Minor League Baseball. [3]
Outfielder Fred Thomas played 58 games in the 1948 season batting .351 which caught the attention of Major League Baseball scouts. He was selected by the Cleveland Indians to join the Wilkes-Barre Barons farm-team who played in the Eastern League, where he was the first black player in the league. [4]
Donald Newcombe, nicknamed "Newk", was an American professional baseball pitcher in Negro league and Major League Baseball who played for the Newark Eagles (1944–45), Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds (1958–1960), and Cleveland Indians (1960).
The Kansas City Monarchs were the longest-running franchise in the history of baseball's Negro leagues. Operating in Kansas City, Missouri and owned by J. L. Wilkinson, they were charter members of the Negro National League from 1920 to 1930. J. L. Wilkinson was the first Caucasian owner at the time of the establishment of the team. In 1930, the Monarchs became the first professional baseball team to use a portable lighting system which was transported from game to game in trucks to play games at night, five years before any major league team did. The Monarchs won ten league championships before integration, and triumphed in the first Negro League World Series in 1924. The Monarchs had only one season in which they did not have a winning record. The team produced more major league players than any other Negro league franchise. It was disbanded in 1965.
The color line, also known as the color barrier, in American baseball excluded players of black African descent from Major League Baseball and its affiliated Minor Leagues until 1947. Racial segregation in professional baseball was sometimes called a gentlemen's agreement, meaning a tacit understanding, as there was no written policy at the highest level of organized baseball, the major leagues. But a high minor league's vote in 1887 against allowing new contracts with black players within its league sent a powerful signal that eventually led to the disappearance of blacks from the sport's other minor leagues later that century, including the low minors.
The Montreal Royals were a minor league professional baseball team in Montreal, Quebec, from 1897–1917 and 1928–60. A member of the International League, the Royals were the top farm club of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1939; pioneering African-American player Jackie Robinson was a member for the 1946 season. The 1946 Royals were recognized as one of the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time.
Alexander Sebastian Campanis was an American executive in Major League Baseball (MLB). He had a brief major league playing career, as a second baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943; he was the first Greek player in MLB history. Campanis is most famous for his position as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1968 to 1987, from which he was fired on April 8, 1987, as a result of controversial remarks regarding blacks in baseball made during an interview on Nightline two days earlier.
The Birmingham Black Barons played professional baseball in Birmingham, Alabama in the Negro leagues from 1920 to 1960. They alternated home stands with the Birmingham Barons in Birmingham's Rickwood Field, usually drawing larger crowds and equal press.
Samuel Jethroe, nicknamed "The Jet", was an American center fielder in Negro league and Major League Baseball. With the Cincinnati & Cleveland Buckeyes he won a pair of batting titles, hit .340 over seven seasons from 1942 to 1948, and helped the team to two pennants and the 1945 Negro World Series title. He was named the National League's Rookie of the Year in 1950 with the Boston Braves, and led the NL in stolen bases in his first two seasons.
Chester Arthur Brewer was an American right-handed pitcher in baseball's Negro leagues. Born in Leavenworth, Kansas, he played for the Kansas City Monarchs, and from 1957 to 1974 he scouted for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Thomas Lynn Trebelhorn is a former manager in Major League Baseball for the Milwaukee Brewers (1986–91) and Chicago Cubs (1994). He was the manager of the Class A Salem-Keizer Volcanoes from 2008 to 2012.
Waldon Thomas Westlake was a utility player in Major League Baseball who had a ten-year career from 1947 to 1956.
Samuel Ralph "Subway Sam" Nahem was an American pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1938), St. Louis Cardinals (1941), and Philadelphia Phillies. His professional baseball playing was interrupted by military service (1942–46) with the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.
The Nashua Dodgers was a farm club of the Brooklyn Dodgers, operating in the class-B New England League between 1946 and 1949. It is believed to be the first professional baseball team based in the United States in the twentieth century to play with a racially integrated roster. The team was based at Holman Stadium in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Daniel Robert Bankhead was the first African American pitcher in Major League Baseball. He played in Negro league baseball for the Birmingham Black Barons and the Memphis Red Sox from 1940 to 1947, then played for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947 to 1951.
The 1948 Cleveland Indians season was the 48th in franchise history. When the regular season resulted in a first place tie, the Indians won a one-game playoff against the Boston Red Sox to advance to the World Series. Cleveland won the championship by defeating the Boston Braves 4 games to 2 for their first World Series win in 28 years. The Sporting News ranked the 1948 Indians the 9th-best team ever. As of 2018, this would be the Cleveland Indians' most recent World Series championship. With the Chicago Cubs' 2016 World Series championship being their first since 1908, the Indians now own the longest active world championship drought in Major League Baseball and the second-longest of any of the big 4 american sports leagues. Only the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals franchise owns a longer active world championship drought of the big 4 american sports leagues, having not won a world championship since 1947.
Samuel Howard Bankhead was an American baseball player in the Negro leagues. He played from 1931 to 1951. He also played for the Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo along with Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson. In 1951, he became the first black coach in Minor League Baseball when he was a player-manager for the Farnham Pirates of the Provincial League. He played in several East-West all-star games from 1933 to 1946.
Fred Bankhead was an American Negro league second baseman in the 1930s and 1940s.
Joe Bankhead was an American baseball player, who played in the Negro leagues. Bankhead was born and died in Empire, Alabama. Bankhead was a pitcher and played for the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948. He later signed with the Grand Rapids Jets of the Central League.
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 lead 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.
Marvin Williams was an American baseball second baseman. Listed at 6' 0" (1.83 m), 190 lb. (86 kg), Williams batted and threw right handed. He was born in Houston, Texas.
Fred Thomas was a Canadian multi-sport professional athlete. He played on semi-professional or professional teams in basketball, baseball, and Canadian football. He was a standout on his college basketball team and is known as one of Canada's finest basketball players. A 2019 profile by TVOntario described Thomas as "the greatest Canadian athlete you've never heard of". He would likely have been more well-known had blacks not been denied opportunities to compete in major professional sports leagues in the 1940s and 1950s.
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