At one time, John Beckwith was the man all subsequent Blackball sluggers were measured against. Yet today, he rarely rates more than a passing mention – and that is a shame because John Beckwith is simply too big to forget. […]
When it came to the 1931 Grays, one of the greatest ballclubs ever assembled in the history of the game, who did their owner/manager Cum Posey choose to send in when one of his all-stars or Hall of Famers was injured? Bill “Happy” Evans, that’s who! […]
While most fans know of Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell, there are still some fantastically talented players who, for some reason or another, have been completely left out of the history of the Negro Leagues. You are about to meet one of them… […]
Since 1952, it had been accepted that Johnny Britton and Jimmie Newberry were the first Black ballplayers to play pro baseball in Japan – that is until an all-star team of researchers rediscovered the mysterious Jimmy Bonna… […]
Doc Sykes was one of the more interesting men to have played in the Negro Leagues. A star college athlete, Sykes was the ace of the Baltimore Black Sox when not practicing dentistry, and went on to become a Civil Rights hero. […]
When the teenage Orestes Miñoso approached the manager of the Ambrosia Candy Company baseball team for a tryout, little did he know that it would be the beginning of a career that would span four countries and last seven decades. […]
This is not your typical biography, but the story of my three-decade quest to uncover and document the life and career of a little-known Negro League ballplayer who may or may not have been named Lefty Glover. […]
Today, Wright’s time in Montreal is seen as a brief footnote to Jackie Robinson’s story – but I’m going to flip it the other way around and argue that those six weeks with Montreal was just a brief footnote in Johnny Wright’s story… […]
While Satchel Paige is usually referenced as the finest pitcher Blackball produced, many fans and sportswriters alike who witnessed both Paige and the man known as Cyclone Joe Williams pick the latter as the best. […]
From the start of his career in 1906, Lloyd was Blackball’s most sought after attraction and he switched teams often, stating “Wherever the money was, that’s where I was.” […]