BALTIMORE'S NEGRO LEAGUES---THE BLACK SOX AND ELITE GIANTS
The Baltimore Elite Giants were a professional baseball team that played in the Negro leagues from 1920 to 1950. The team was established by Thomas T. Wilson, in Nashville, Tennessee as the semi-pro Nashville Standard Giants on March 26, 1920. The team was renamed the Elite Giants in 1921, and moved to Baltimore, Maryland in 1938, where the team remained for the duration of their existence. The team and its fans pronounced the word "Elite" as "ee-light".
They won the Negro National Title in 1939 and 1949. The Elite Giants gave Joe Black, Junior Gilliam and Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella their initial exposure to professional baseball before becoming beloved bums with the Brooklyn Dodgers. The 1942 season was the best-ever for the club when they posted a 37-15 record, tops in the Negro National League.
During the team's career the Homestead Grays were the dominant team. The Elites would play them every year and finally in 1939 the Elites claimed the championship, beating the Grays in a four-team post season tournament. In 1948 the league folded. In 1949, after the league had been reconstructed and under the new management of Lennie Pearson, the Elites won the Eastern Division and Western Division. In 1946 Tom Wilson sold the franchise due to health problems. In 1950 after the team got second place in the East, while suffering financial problems, the team was sold to William Bridgeforth for $11,000 and relocated to Nashville.
The Baltimore Black Sox started as an independent team in 1916. Around 1929, when the Great Depression started, the players were without contracts and were forced to play on game percentages. The Black Sox were charter members of the Eastern Colored League in 1923. In their first season, they finished last with a 19-30 record, but they turned it around the following season for a second-place finish with 30-19 record.
In 1929, The Black Sox boasted the "Million Dollar Infield" of Jud "Boojum" Wilson (first baseman), Frank Warfield (second baseman),Oliver "Ghost" Marcelle (third baseman) and Sir Richard Lundy (shortstop). The nickname was given to them by the media because of the prospective worth had they been white players. The 1929 Black Sox won over 70% of their games and took the American Negro League Championship. Outfielder Herb "Rap" Dixon, who later discovered Leon Day on the Baltimore sandlots, led the Black Sox with five home runs, 17 RBIs and a .384 batting average.
During their only season in the East-West League (1932), the Black Sox were in third place with a 41-41 record when the league ceased operations.
In mid-season 1934, another team entered the league using the Black Sox name, but it didn't meet with much success and disbanded after only one year. This left Baltimore without an African-American team until the Elite Giants arrived in 1938.
BALTIMORE'S OWN LEON DAY
On 6 September 2007, the Baltimore Orioles wore Black Sox uniforms in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Black Sox' 1932 season.
The most consistently outstanding pitcher in the Negro National League during the late 1930s and 1940s, Leon Day was a heady pitcher whose money pitch was his fastball. He played for both the Baltimore Black Sox and the Baltimore Elite Giants. The ace right-hander had a good curve and change of pace to complement his speed. A strikeout artist, he holds the strikeout record in the Negro National League, the Puerto Rican League, and the East-West All Star game.
Not only was Leon a great pitcher, but he was also a fast base runner (once running a 100-yard dash in 10 seconds in his baseball uniform) a good fielder (regarded as the best fielding pitcher in the league and who functioned as a fifth infielder), a good hitter (with averages of .320, .336, .274, .469, and .271 to show for the seasons of 1937, 1941, 1942, 1946, and 1949), and a recognized team leader (and one of the most respected and best-liked players on the club). In contrast to the confidence he exuded in competition, off the field he maintained a modest demeanor, but both on and off the field, Day displayed a calm temperament.
Hall of Famer and fellow Negro League star Monte Irvin said this about Day: "He was as good or better than Bob Gibson. When he pitched against Satchel Paige, Satchel didn't have an edge. You thought Don Newcombe could pitch. You should have seen Day"
He began playing baseball as a youngster in Baltimore's Mount Winan's district, and after quitting school after the tenth grade, he played sandlot ball with the local athletic club. In 1934 he was playing second base for the semi-pro Silver Moons ballclub, but at midseason he made his first excursion into professional baseball with the Baltimore Black Sox, playing out of Chester, Pennsylvania, where he earned $60 a month. The next season he joined the Brooklyn Eagles, where manager "Candy Jar" Taylor converted him to a full-time pitcher and he recorded a 9-3 ledger for the season. His long association with the Newark Eagles began in 1936 when Abe Manley bought the Brooklyn Eagles' franchise and consolidated it with the Newark Dodgers to form the Newark Eagles. After his perfect record in 1937, he injured his arm in the winter and missed virtually all of the 1938 season. Through hard work and determination he rehabilitated the arm and was credited with 16 wins against only 4 losses in 1939.
The 1949 season, spent with the pennant winning Baltimore Elite Giants, was his last full season in the Negro Leagues, although he spent about a month in the spring of 1950 with the team. Day played a few more years in Mexico and Canada, and was elected into the Negro League Hall of Fame in 1971. In 1970, he returned to Baltimore as a security guard for a transfer company, retiring in 1979. Day married Geraldine Ingram in 1980.
Day was nominated into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on March 7, 1995. He was in the hospital at time of the election. "I'm ready to get up out of this bed," said Day, who suffered from diabetes, gout and a bad heart. "This has been on the back of my mind for a long time." Leon Day died on March 13, 1995. In 1995, a section of Camden Street was named Leon Day Way and in 2000, Leon Day Park opened in the Rosemont/Franklintown neighborhood in West Baltimore.
JUD WILSON
BALTIMORE'S MILLION DOLLAR INFIELD
Jud Wilson, Frank Warfield, Oliver Marcelle and Dick Lundy comprised what was known as the “Million Dollar Infield” because their collective talents may have been worth $1,000,000 to the major leagues had they been white. Not unlike their Charm City counterpart Orioles of the turn of the century, these Black Sox were hardnosed both on and off the field.
Wilson, was referred to as "Babe Ruth Wilson" by the media, his teammates nicknamed him "Boojum" after the noise his line drives made after striking the outfield fences. The team went on a twelve-game winning streak after Wilson joined the club. He finished his first season with a .390 batting average and a team high in home runs. The Black Sox joined the Eastern Colored League in 1923 and Wilson hit .373 that season, leading the league. Struggling with his fielding skills, Wilson often blocked or knocked down batted balls rather than catching them with his glove. Because of his strong arm, he was still able to throw runners out on such plays. He had an unusual physique, standing 5'8" and weighing 195 pounds with a large torso, a small waist, bowed legs and pigeon toe. Pitcher Satchel Paige claimed that Wilson and Chino Smith were the two toughest outs he ever faced (Wilson hit .375 against Paige). Catcher Josh Gibson said that Wilson was the best hitter in baseball.
Wilson was known for a bad temper and a willingness to get into physical altercations. His friend Jake Stephens said, "The minute he saw an umpire, he became a maniac." A well-circulated story involved Wilson holding Stephens out of a sixteenth story window by one leg after Stephens came in late and woke him. Others, including Judy Johnson and Ted Page, described him as different off the field. "He'd do anything in the world for you," Johnson said.
Dick Lundy hit .315 for the 1929 Black Sox and reportedly hit .484 in 1921 with the Atlantic City Giants. He narrowly missed induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame when the old Negro League stars were first considered for enshrinement. Marcelle. nicknamed “Ghost”, was considered by most to be the greatest fielding third basemen in the league throughout the 1920s and possibly of all time. Baseball Hall of Famer Judy Johnson once admitted that Marcelle was a better defensive player than himself. During that time, he and shortstop Dick Lundy made up one of the best left-side infields ever.
Marcelle was known for a terrible temper, with umpires and opponents commonly drawn into arguments with him, and even teammates sometimes fighting him. Marcelle once hit Oscar Charleston in the head with a bat. Warfield was also known to have a violent nature that led to arguments and he had a classic one with Marcelle. In a strange incident in the late 1920s, Warfield reportedly bit Marcelle's nose off after the two got into a fight, when both men were playing in the Cuban Winter League. Bill Yancey, another teammate of Marcelle's, said, "What got [Marcelle] out of baseball, he and [teammate] Frank Warfield had a fight in Cuba [probably in the winter of 1927-28, over a dice game] and Warfield bit his nose off. He was a proud, handsome guy, you know, and then he used to wear a black patch across his nose and he got so he couldn't play baseball anymore."
