negroleagues.org

career

King Solomon "Sol" White was an American professional infielder, manager and Negro Leagues baseball executive.

He wielded major influence d immense respect among players in the Negro Leagues.

As an active sportswriter for many years, White actually wrote the first definitive history on black baseball in 1907.

In honor of his contributions to the game of baseball, he was elected to Major League Baseball’s National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.

As a teenager Sol White was a fan of the Bellaire Globes, a local amateurs team.

Journalist Floyd J. Calvin recounts the story of how White got a chance to play for his favorite team. The Globes were playing a team from Marietta, Ohio;

"One of the Globes players got his finger smashed and since they all knew Sol, the captain pushed him into the game. Sol always remembered that game for the captain and second baseman of the Marietta team was none other than Ban B. Johnson, in later years president of the American League and a leading sportsman of the West. Sol takes pride in having played against Ban when he was an obscure captain of a hick town club."

White would quickly go on to make a name for himself in world of professional black baseball.

By the time he was just 16, and his talent was so in demand he had "attracted the attention of managers and executives of independent teams throughout the Ohio Valley and his services were in great demand."

Originally a shortstop, White eventually "developed into a great all-round player, filling in at any defensive position need by team from catcher to outfield." [5] [7]

In 1887, he joined the Pittsburgh Keystones of the National Colored BaseBall League. He began as a left fielder, but soon found a home as a second baseman.

White was hitting .308 for the Keystones before the league folded after a week it had began.

Unfazed by the sudden loss of his employment, he joined the Wheeling (West Virginia) Green Stockings of the Ohio State League.

There he was finally able to see consistent playing time. In his time with the team, Sol White recorded a batting average of .370 with a slugging percentage of .502, serving as the team’s cornerstone starting third baseman. [8]

In the off-season of that year, the Ohio State League renamed itself to the Tri-State League and banned black players from playing in the league, including Sol White.

Weldy Walker, an African American catcher for the league's Akron club wrote an eloquent and open letter to league officials protesting the decision.

It was published in an edition of the Sporting Life Magazine in March 1888, and within a few weeks the outrage was so grievous that the ban on African -American players from the league was rescinded.

White was reassigned and sent to join a team on the barnstorming on the road, but the Wheeling manager, Al Buckenberger, refused to fully accept White as a person, possibly due to his sexual orientation, and he was released from the team. [9] [10]

He would rejoined his old team, the Pittsburgh Keystones, and have the opportunity to played in a "Colored World Championship Tournament" held in New York City.

The matchup between the first place Cuban Giants and the second place Keystones was shaping up to be an interesting affair.

Sol White spent most 1889 with the New York Gorhams, a black team that spent part of the season in the Middle States League.

While playing with New York, White took the position of both starting catcher and at time starting second baseman for the Gorhams.

The next year, he joined the Colored Monarchs of the Eastern Interstate League, an all white-owned team that signed most of the 1889 Cuban Giants.

White played second base for that team, hitting .350, with 21 stolen bases in just 54 games.

In 1891 he played for the Big Gothams of New York, a team that he later called "without a doubt one of the strongest teams ever gotten together, white or black." [15]

The following year in 1892, New York Gorhams became the Norwalk Gorhams briefly representing Norwalk, Connecticut, in the Connecticut State League.

It was in 1895 that White batted .385 as a second baseman for the Fort Wayne, Indiana team of the Western Interstate League. Later that year, White would go on to overtake starter Bud Fowler at second base, on the barnstorming power house Page Fence Giants.

He seized the opportunity to play for the Giants, putting up a batting average of .404, with the Giants finishing finished the season with a 118-36-2 record, playing in an incredible in 112 town venues across 7 states.

Sol then enrolled in Wilberforce University as a theology student in 1896, spending the next four years alternating between professional baseball with the Cuban X-Giants in the summer and college in the fall and winter.

As of 1900 he was still listed as the Wilberforce athletic director. [2]

He spent a season playing shortstop for the Chicago Columbia Giants in 1901, appearing in a Cuban X-Giants uniform and one last season 1902.

White then retired from playing focusing more on managing and front office work. First he moved to Philadelphia where he co-founded the Philadelphia Giants.

His playing time was gradually curtailed as he concentrated on the business of baseball rather than playing. This is when Sol White showed his adept talent as a manager.

According to research by Bob Davids, Sol White also spent all or part of five seasons in organized minor leagues, playing 152 games and hitting .359 scoring 169 runs, with 231 hits, 40 doubles, and 41 stolen bases. [20]

Along with Walter Schlichter, a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Item, and Harry Smith, a baseball writer for the Philadelphia Tribune, wrote about White's creation of the Philadelphia Giants in 1902, serving as the team's captain and general manager.

His Philadelphia Giants were at first paid on a profit-sharing "cooperative plan," but in 1903 White reorganized the team’s finances and put all the players on a static yearly contracted with a base salary.

The Giants lost a playoff run for the Colored World Championship to the Cuban X-Giants in the 1903 season, losing to legendary ace pitcher, Rube Foster.

At the conclusion of the series White was so impressed that he signed Foster, outfielder Pete Hill, and second baseman Charlie Grant for the team's 1904 campaign.

With those significant additions to an already championship level team, the Philadelphia Giants won the championship series from the X-Giants the next season, winning the series 5-2.

For the 1905 season, White signed Home Run Johnson, luring him from the X-Giants, making the Philadelphia Giants into what he believed "the strongest organization of the time."

The Giants went undefeated playing in the New England League and then sweeping a four game championship in the Newark International League.

The Giants went on to play a total of 158 games, finishing the season with an astounding recored of 134-21-3, not only in term of success but also in term of games played.

Powerful baseball promoter Nat Strong declared the 1904-1905 Philadelphia Giants "the best team in the history of the game." [22]

Despite losing Home Run Johnson to the Brooklyn Royal Giants in 1906, the Giants were still able to win both the informal "colored championship" and the pennant of the racially integrated International League of Independent Professional Base Ball Clubs.

For the organization, player losses became an issue in 1907, as Rube Foster defected to the Leland Giants of Chicago, dealing a huge blow to the Brooklyn Royal Giants.

Despite losing possibility the greatest pitcher his time in Rube Foster, White began to make a sucession of moves to reshape the team.

He brought in Hall of Fame shortstop John Henry Lloyd to play along side catcher Bruce Petty,

The Royal Giants finished first in the National Association of Colored Baseball Clubs of the United States and Cuba, an all-black league.

This marked the fourth consecutive year in which the Philadelphia Giants claimed a black professional championship.

The next year however, in 1908, the Giants lost Pete Hill to the Lelands Giants, and in 1909, White left the team completely after a disagreement with Schlichter.

He went on to managed for the Philadelphia Quaker Giants for a season, and at the conclusion of the 1910 season, was hired back to manage the Brooklyn Royal Giants once again, but this time he had some trouble controlling his players, and abruptly left after one season. [24] [25]

For the following season Jess McMahon and his brother Eddie hired White to manage their new startup team, the New York Giants.

White again began assembling a collection of top talent within the Negro Leagues. He added John Henry Lloyd, Spot Poles, and Bill Francis to the team immediately. In July 1911 he raided his old team, the Philadelphia Giants, for their star rookie battery, Dick Redding and Louis Santop.

As a result, Schlichter could no longer keep the team running, and it was dissolved. White then quit the Lincolns before the season was over, being replaced as manager by John Henry Lloyd. [26]

White’s next venture in baseball was to manage in the Cuban League for the 1911-12 winter league season. He brought along his friend and fellow visionary, Rube Foster and a number of American black players. However, the team lost five of its first six games. After such a poor showing White disbanded the team and most of his players were released

After a year managing an obscure team called the Boston Giants, White retired from baseball completely, and returned to Bellaire. [27] [28}

He would returned to baseball once more to serve as secretary for the Columbus Buckeyes of the Negro National League (NNL) in 1921, and helped bring in his old friend, John Henry Lloyd, as player-manager.

White then took on his last two managerial jobs, with Cleveland: in 1922 he guided an independent club, the Fears Giants of Cleveland, and in 1924 he managed the Cleveland Browns of the Negro National League. [29] [30]

Before calling it quits White took on one last job in baseball as a coach for the 1926 Newark Stars of the Eastern Colored League (ECL).

Sol White is perhaps best known for his writing of the History of Colored Base Ball, also inscribed on the title page as "Sol White's Official Base Ball Guide."

A small, 128-page, soft-covered pamphlet, History of Colored Base Ball was sold at Philadelphia Giants games in the spring of 1907. [32] [33]

The first chapter of the book begins with the organization in 1885, of the first professional colored baseball teams, discussing the brusque removal of all black players from the predominantly white leagues during the next four years, and then outlines the growing strength of "colored base ball” moving into the early years of the 20th century.

This short book-within-a-book is history, but it can also be described as an almanac, a scorecard, an archive, a who's who of African-American baseball up to 1907. Akin to the Bill James Abstract.

In addition to White's narrative talking about the history of black professional teams, the book featured chapters on "Colored Baseball as a Profession," "The Color Line," and "Managers' Troubles," among others.

Rube Foster, one of White's former players, contributed a chapter on "How to Pitch," and Home Run Johnson wrote a short essay on the "Art and Science of Hitting." The book was also illustrated with 57 photographs of players, manager, and owners, many of them found nowhere else. [33]

White's History of Colored Base Ball was the first book devoted specifically to black professional baseball, and it would remain the only one for more than 60 years, until Robert W. Peterson published Only the Ball Was White in 1970. Today only five copies are known to exist. [34]

Sol White's career as a baseball writer would continue with a series of articles on "colored baseball" in the Cleveland Advocate, a black newspaper, in 1919.

After moving to the east coast in the 1920s he wrote articles and columns for the New York Age and the New York Amsterdam News.

In 1927 the Pittsburgh Courier reported that White "has a new book he would like to publish, a kind of second edition to his old one, bringing the game from 1907 down to date, and if there is anybody anywhere in sports circles who thinks enough of what has gone before to help Sol print his record, he will be glad to hear from them. Without a doubt this record will prove valuable in years to come."

This second book on black baseball by Sol White never appeared.

Sol White married Florence Fields on March 15, 1906. Their first child, a son named Paran Walter White (named after Sol's older brother), was born later that year.

A second son, a boy, died when he was only two days old in August 1907.

Sol’s wife Paran died of kidney disease in April 1908. A third child, a daughter named Marion, lived to adulthood. Florence and Sol White appear to have become separated at some point before 1930. [36]

When Sol White was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, no family members were was present for his induction, so the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig accepted his plaque on the family's behalf.

White died at age 87 in Central Islip, New York.

He was buried in an unmarked grave in Frederick Douglass Memorial Park in the Oakwood neighborhood of Staten Island, New York City, until 2014, when the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project installed a new headstone at his burial site.

players

Oscar Charelston

Pittsburgh Crawfords, Indianapolis Clowns player manager Oscar Charleston.

Oscar Charleston played and managed in the Negro Leagues as an outfielder, first baseman and pitcher. Charleston would later become manager of the Indianapolis Clowns.

Cool Papa Bell

Oscar Charelston

Cool Papa Bell played centerfield in the Negro Leagues from 1922 to 1946. played for the powerhouse Kansas City. Monarchs, Pittsburgh Crawfords, and Homestead Grays.

Buck Leonard

Oscar Charelston

Satchel Paige

Buck Leonard, along side Josh Gibson formed the best three-four, hitting tandem in the History of the Negro Leagues, leading the Homestead Grays to dominance.

Satchel Paige

Cumberland Posey

Satchel Paige

Satchel Paige began his 20 year career in the Negro Leagues pitching for the Chattanooga Lookouts. He would later make his MLB debut at age 42 for the Cleveland Indians.

Cumberland Posey

Cum Posey was a veteran Negro Leagues team owner, player, and league executive. He is the founding member of two leagues, and a Hall of Fame Basketball player.

Jackie Robinson

Cumberland Posey

Jackie Robinson is the first African American to play Major League Baseball. He broke baseball's color barrier in 1945, by signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Roy Campanella

Roy Campanella played one season in the Negro Leagues, signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers just one season after Jackie Robinson’s debut in Major League Baseball.

Gus Greenlee

Roy Campanella

Gus Greenlee was a driving force behind the organization of the Negro National League I. During his time involved with Negro Leagues he owned several profitable side businesses.

Henry AAron

Roy Campanella

Candy Jim Taylor

Major League Baseball’s all-time leader in home runs with 755, few know Aaron began his baseball career in the Negro Leagues as a shortstop for the Indianapolis Clowns.

Candy Jim Taylor

Cristóbal Torriente

Candy Jim Taylor

Candy Jim Taylor was a professional third baseman, manager, and brother of four professional playing Negro Leaguers. His career in baseball spanned over 40 years.

Cristóbal Torriente

Cristóbal Torriente, often called the Babe Ruth of Cuba, played as an outfielder in the Negro Leagues from 1912-1932. He was most known for his incredible power to all fields.

Rube Foster

Cristóbal Torriente

Considered one of the best pitchers of the early 1900s, and perhaps the most influential figure in Negro League history, Rube Foster founded the NNLI and managed the Chicago American Giants.

Larry Doby

Josh Gibson

Larry Doby was the second African-American baseball player to break baseball's color barrier and the first black player to play in the American League.

Josh Gibson

Even from the catcher position, Josh Gibson's display of power during his career for the Homestead Grays is legendary. However, Gibson would never play Major League Baseball.

Sol White

Josh Gibson

Ben Taylor

King Solomon "Sol" White played baseball professionally as an infielder, manager and league executive. White is considered to be one of the pioneers of the Negro Leagues.

Ben Taylor

Born in July 1888, Ben Taylor was the youngest of 4 professional Negro Leaguers, including Candy Jim Taylor, C.I. Taylor, and Johnny Steel Arm Taylor.

Biz Mackey

Ben Taylor

Biz Mackey

Biz Mackey was regarded as one of the Negro Leagues premier offensive and defensive catchers, playing across several leagues from late 1920s and early 1930s.

Nat Strong

Ben Taylor

Biz Mackey

Nathaniel Strong was a Negro Leagues sports executive, businessman, team owner and founding member of the Negro National League I,

Monte Irvin

Turkey Stearnes

Monte Irvin flourished as one of the early African-American players in MLB, making 2 World Series appearances for the New York Giants, playing along side Willie Mays.

Turkey Stearnes

Norman Turkey Stearnes played professionally in the Negro Leagues, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.

Willie Mays

Turkey Stearnes

Steel Arm Taylor

A can’t miss five-tool player, Mays began his professional baseball career with the Black Barons, spending the rest of his career playing MLB for the Giants and Mets.

Steel Arm Taylor

John Boyce Taylor was the second-oldest of 4 baseball-playing brothers, the others being Charles, Ben and James. For the 1899-1900 seasons, Taylor won 90% of his games starting pitcher for the Giants.

Buck O'Neil

Steel Arm Taylor

Martín Dihigo

Buck signed with the Memphis Red Sox for their first year of play in the newly formed Negro American League (NAL). His contract was sold to the Kansas Monarchs the following year.

Martín Dihigo

Steel Arm Taylor

Martín Dihigo

Martín Magdaleno Dihigo Llanos called The Immortal, was a Cuban professional baseball player. He played in the Negro Leagues and Latin American leagues from 1923 to 1936.