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Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige was an American professional baseball pitcher who played in Negro league baseball and Major League Baseball (MLB). His career spanned five decades and culminated with his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
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Leon Day was an American professional baseball pitcher who spent the majority of his career in the Negro leagues. Recognized as one of the most versatile athletes in the league during his prime, Day could play every position, with the exception of catcher, and often was the starting second baseman or center fielder when he was not on the mound. A right-handed pitcher with a trademark no wind-up delivery, Day excelled at striking batters out, especially with his high-speed fastball. At the same time, he was an above-average contact hitter, which, combined with his effectiveness as a baserunner and his tenacious fielding, helped cement Day as one of the most dynamic players of the era.
The Pittsburgh Crawfords, popularly known as the Craws, were a professional Negro league baseball team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team, previously known as the Crawford Colored Giants, was named after the Crawford Bath House, a recreation center in the Crawford neighborhood of Pittsburgh's Hill District.
Hilton Lee Smith was an American right-handed pitcher in Negro league baseball. He pitched alongside Satchel Paige for the Kansas City Monarchs and Bismarck Churchills between 1932 and 1948. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001.
This list comprises players who have appeared in Negro league baseball.
Theodore Roosevelt "Double Duty" Radcliffe was a professional baseball player in the Negro leagues. An accomplished two-way player, he played as a pitcher and a catcher, became a manager, and in his old age became a popular ambassador for the game. He is one of only a handful of professional baseball players who lived past their 100th birthdays, next to Red Hoff and fellow Negro leaguer Silas Simmons.
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The East–West All-Star Game was an annual all-star game for Negro league baseball players. The game was the brainchild of Gus Greenlee, owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords. In 1933 he decided to emulate the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, using Negro league players. Newspaper balloting was set up to allow the fans to choose the starting lineups for that first game, a tradition that continued through the series' end in 1962. Unlike the white All-Star game which is played near the middle of the season, the Negro All-Star game was held toward the end of the season.
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The Bismarck team was an integrated semi-professional baseball team based in Bismarck, North Dakota, in the 1930s. The team played independently of any league because its mixed-race roster was a problem in a period of segregation, and because there were no formal leagues at the semi-professional level in North Dakota in the 1930s. The team was owned by Neil Churchill, a local car dealer who owned the city's Chrysler dealership, and regularly played against Valley City, Jamestown, and other teams across North Dakota and Manitoba.
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Cornelius Randall Robinson, known professionally as Neil Robinson, was a major league baseball player in the segregated Negro leagues. Also known by the nicknames Neal and Shadow, he primarily played as a center fielder in the 1930s and 1940s, but as a semipro player he alternated between the outfield, shortstop, and third baseman. For the majority of his twenty-three year career, Robinson played for the Memphis Red Sox. Prior to being acquired by Memphis, he played one season for the Homestead Grays and three seasons with the Cincinnati Tigers.
Bob Mitchell was an American pitcher who played in Negro league baseball.
Wesley "Big Train" Barrow was an American Negro league player and manager in the 1940s who was once regarded as "one of the best developers of Negro talent in the South."
Edward Arnett Davis, nicknamed "Peanuts", was an American Negro league pitcher in the late 1930s, throughout the 1940s, and into the early 1950s. He sometimes used the pseudonym "Peanuts Nyasses" when playing baseball for iterations of the Clowns in Miami, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. He was often called the "Clown Prince of Negro Baseball" by sportswriters who saw him play. But the sportswriters also acknowledged that in addition to clowning, he was considered "one of the top pitchers in Negro baseball;" in fact, many fans, believed he was as talented as the much better-known Satchel Paige. Davis was also praised for his versatility. "He’s a brilliant hurler...and a standout also if stationed anywhere in the outfield or infield."
References
- 1 2 3 [ permanent dead link ] Stories of Children, "Snatching A Moment with Satch"
- 1 2 Archived 2008-10-06 at the Wayback Machine Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe: 36 Years of Pitching & Catching in Baseball's Negro Leagues
- ↑ Satchel Paige Stats and Awards
- ↑ Major League Baseball: Negro Leagues Legacy
- ↑ [ permanent dead link ] The African American Registry
- ↑ James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994 (Negro Leagues Baseball Museum at Kansas State University College of Education)
- ↑ Archived 2008-05-24 at the Wayback Machine New York Times (June 8, 1982) Obituary of Satchel Paige at the Negro League Baseball Players Association
- ↑ Satchel Paige as told to David Lipman (1993). Maybe I'll Pitch Forever . University of Nebraska Press. pp. 30–31. ISBN 0-8032-8732-1.
- ↑ Birmingham-Pittsburg Traveller(kenyon.edu)
- ↑ Larry Tye (2009). Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend. New York: Random House. pp. 24–29, 41–42. ISBN 978-1-4000-6651-3.
- ↑ Bobby Robinson Wood Sign