SOM: More Negro Leagues

By Ed Piper

I was getting to the point in my previous Strat-O-Matic article (see entry) to where some people are going to hit saturation point, so I stopped and here move to a separate entry for more thoughts and notes about the most recent Negro Leagues research.

The Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, inducted Buck O'Neil, a great interpreter and storyteller of the Blackball days before the color line was broken, and Minnie Minoso in 2022 primarily because of this research. The box scores and numbers quantify the productivity of the Negro Leaguers. It's one thing to claim "Josh Gibson hit 800 home runs", and another to actually find the dates and games in which the great catcher (who died at an early age) hit 165 homers in Negro League-level play (which is the current documented number).

I don't have to tell you that African-American athletes, and Latinos for that matter, and their entrepreneurs had to find ways to construct a separate economic structure during segregation for baseball players to show their talents. In one of the Strat-O-Matic dice games with cards I played today (April 11), I positioned Jim Gilliam at leadoff for 1948 Baltimore Giants, a team I never knew he played for (I didn't know that he played Negro League ball) before he starred for the Dodgers when I was a kid.

The 2022 inductees were the first from the Negro Leagues era since 2006, when a big wave were voted in: 17 players and management, the latter including Effa Manley, Alex Pompez, Cum Posey and J.L. Wilkinson. Sol White was a player who established the Philadelphia Giants and wrote a history of the sport. The players: Ray Brown, Willard Brown, Andy Cooper, Frank Grant, Pete Hill, Biz Mackey, Jose Mendez, Louis Santop, Mule Suttles, Ben Taylor, Cristobal Torriente, and Jud Wilson. (I have all of them in my earlier Strat-O-Matic card set.)

Prior to 2006, Hall of Fame induction for Negro League/Blackball veterans was singular or piecemeal: Hilton Smith in 2001; Turkey Stearnes in 2000; Smokey Joe Williams in 1999; "Bullet" Joe Rogan in 1998; Willie Wells in 1997; Bill Foster in 1996; Leon Day in 1995; Ray Dandridge in 1987; Rube Foster in 1981; Martin Dihigo and Pop Lloyd in 1977; Oscar Charleston in 1976; Judy Johnson in 1975; Cool Papa Bell in 1974; Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard in 1972; Satchel Paige in 1971.