Biz Mackey was regarded a a highly regarded professional baseball player, playing in the Negro Leagues. Mackey showcased premier offensive and defensive talent at the catchers position. Mackey's career began in the late 1920's and lasted for over 30 years.
With 1,008 hits in 3,474 plate appearances, Mackey finished his career with a batting average of .328 and an on-base percentage (OBP) of .39...
During his career, Mackey was able to scored a combined total of 497 runs through his play in professional black baseball.
James Raleigh "Biz" Mackey was an American catcher and manager playing professional baseball in the Negro Leagues. Mackey played for seven franchise over multiple Negro Leagues, in a career that spanned over 30 years.
Mackey was regarded as black baseball's premier catcher in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
His superior defense and outstanding throwing arm were complemented by his superb batting skill which placed him among the Negro Leagues all-time leaders in total bases, runs batted in, and slugging percentage, all while maintaining a batting average over .300 for his career.
Biz Mackey was officially elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.
Born in Eagle Pass, Texas, to a sharecropping family that included two brothers. he began playing baseball with them on the Luling Oilers, a Prairie League team, in 1916 in his hometown of Luling.
From there Mackey joined the professional San Antonio Black Aces and remained on the roster for two seasons.
When teams began to fold in 1920, in desperation his contract was sold to the Indianapolis ABCs.
The acquisition by the ABCs aligned perfectly for the inaugural season of the Negro National League I.
Mackey spent three seasons with the ABCs, manager Candy Jim Taylor said, he blossomed into the promising player he showed he could be.
With the ABCs, Mackey hit .315, .317, and .344. After three outstanding seasons he was picked up by the Hilldale club in time for the creation of the Eastern Colored League in 1923.
In his first season with Hilldale, Mackey batted .423, winning the Eastern Colored League (ECL) batting title and leading the team to the pennant. He followed up that first season with Hilldale with eight consecutive seasons batting .308 or better.
In 1924, he finished third in the batting race as Hilldale repeated as ECL champions, but lost to the Kansas City Monarchs 5-4 in what was the ECL’s first Negro League World Series.
Mackey found himself playing a utility role for the team, going from his normal catch duties to third base, and then platooning at first and behind the plate, backing up aging catcher Louis Santop. He also shared time at shortstop with teammates Pop Lloyd and Jake Stephens, before taking over as the full-time catching job in 1925
In that year's Negro League World Series, Mackey helped Hilldale win the title over the K.C. Monarchs with a season batting average of .360.
As fate would have it that Mackey drove in the lead run in the 11th inning of the first game, which gave Hilldale a 12 inning victory. Again, Mackey showed his prowess as a ball player, scoring the winning run in a 2–1 victory in Game 5 of the series.
His three hits contribution in game six helped clinch the title for Hilldale.
In 1931, he won his second batting title with a .359 average, as Hilldale also finished with the best record among eastern teams.
In voting for the first East–West All-Star Game in 1933, Mackey was selected at catcher over the young budding power hitting catcher, Josh Gibson, who was a mainstay batting cleanup regularly for the Homestead Grays. Not to be outdone by this, Mackey would go on to played in three more All-Star Games by 1938.
In 1934, he hit .299for the the Philadelphia Stars as they won NNL second-half pennant. He had a strong postseason, putting up .368 average in the series, and a clinch hit to drive in the first run of a 2–0 victory in Game 7, greatly helping to defeat the incumbent Chicago American Giants 4-3.
Mackey also participated in barnstorming tours that included a highly successful trip to Japan in 1927, during which he became the first player to hit a home run out of Meiji Shrine Stadium, doing so in three straight games.
This feat earned Mackey a particularly warm reception while on tour. He would make numerous trips to play in Japan in 1934 and 1935.
By 1937, Mackey was managing the Baltimore Elite Giants, where he began mentoring 15-year-old Roy Campanella in the fine points of catching. Campanella later recalled:
"In my opinion, Biz Mackey was the master of defense of all catchers. When I was a kid in Philadelphia, I saw both Mackey and Mickey Cochrane in their primes, but for real catching skills, I don't think Cochrane was the master of defense that Mackey was. When I went under his direction in Baltimore, I was 15 years old. I gathered quite a bit from Mackey, watching how he did things, how he blocked low pitches, how he shifted his feet for an outside pitch, how he threw with a short, quick, accurate throw without drawing back. I got all this from Mackey at a young age."
Mackey joined the Newark Eagles in 1939, replaced Dick Lundy as manager a year later, and continued his work with young players such as Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, and Don Newcombe.
When Larry Doby became the first African American to play in the American League, breaking the color barrier by joining the Cleveland Indians in 1947. Mackey had recommended moving Doby from second base to centerfield, and transition that work out well for Doby.
Personality conflicts with Newark’s owner Effa Manley led to Mackey's departure from play after the 1941 season.
He returned to the field in 1945 and managed the team in 1946 as the Eagles won the Negro League World Series 4-3, again over the KC Monarchs, who featured pitcher Satchel Paige.
Even in his 40s, Mackey was still an effective player – he hit .307 in 1945, and appeared again in the leagues 1947 All-Star Game at the age of 50. When the Eagles moved to Houston in 1950, he retired from baseball following that season.
In the 1950s, Mackey moved to Los Angeles and began working as a forklift operator.
In 1952, he was selected by a Pittsburgh Courier poll as the Negro leagues' greatest catcher, finishing ahead of Josh Gibson. Mackey received more attention on May 7, 1959, when his protégé Roy Campanella was honored at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum following his paralysis from a car accident.
Mackey was introduced to the crowd of over 93,000 fans for an exhibition game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees, where he payed his repsects to the now paralysed Campy.
Mackey lived in Los Angeles until his death in 1965. He is buried in that city's Evergreen Cemetery.
Through the 1990s, reference sources widely reported his death as having occurred in 1959; this seems to have resulted from Campanella's recollection in John B. Holway's 1988 book Blackball Stars that Mackey "passed away right after" the Coliseum event, an apparent error that Campanella repeated in other interviews.
In 2006, Mackey was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
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