. The service requires full JavaScript support in order to view this website. 555 N. Central Ave. #416 TRIBOU: Minnie Forbes owned the Detroit Stars from 1956 to 1958. The list does not include Negro league players who only played in the minor leagues and White Hispanic players who played in both the Negro Leagues and MLB prior to full integration (ex. Hank Aaron and Willie Mays also began their careers in the Negro Leagues. "Many of the players are gone, but their . An additional 35 or so players played on a Negro league team after 1950. "I always really, really wanted to get the full workup for those guys -- walks, on-base percentage, fielding stats, home runs allowed by pitchers -- so you could tell what kind of players they were, how they fit into their teams, how the teams compared to each other. From 1940 to 1949, 1,705 men played at least one game in the National League or American League plus hundreds, maybe thousands, more in the Negro Leagues. After spotting the Black newspaper The Chicago Defender in his universitys library stacks and knowing its historical importance, he dove into the reels for the 1920 season and was surprised to see incredibly thorough coverage and box scores for the Negro National League. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. TRIBOU: Jackie Robinson played briefly in the Negro Leagues. The league ended in like 1950 so a 20 yr old then would be 86/7 this year. Buck Leonard: Walter (Buck) Leonard combined with Josh Gibson for Negro baseball's best 1-2 home-run punch. This is a list of the last handful of living major leaguers from the 1940s. January 29, 2007 - Ralph "Big Cat" Johnson passes away. Holsey Lee: A great pitcher for over 20 years, Scrip Lee spent most of his long career in the Eastern Colored League. Although there are two players who played before 1946 none of them appeared in 1946, thus no players from 1946 are still alive. While there are roughly 130 players alive from the Negro Leagues, according to baseball historian Larry Lester, only those four players are alive from that 1920-1948 window. Baseball needs to retroactivelypay the newly recognized Negro League players and their surviving families. The text below has been updated to reflect that. He cites being selected to manage the East All-Star team in 1939 as his biggest moment. But thousands of Black and Latino players endured bigotry and racist taunts. Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction? Created a hundred years ago, the leagues showcased Black baseball players, players who couldn't play on the major teams because of the color of their skin. Some defensive statistics Copyright Sports Info Solutions, 2010-2023. Sports Reference . There are a variety of reasons for that, Ashwill said, including a lack of capital and other resources, looser organization and less of a press infrastructure covering them.. Apocryphal stories surround Paige, who was born July 7, 1906 in Mobile, Ala. Those four names aren't just pieces of data, or clickable things on a site, they are human beings who excelled despiteliving under the thick anvilof segregation. I read Bill James in the 1980s, and I wanted a Negro League Baseball Abstract. Our statistics are based on box scores and game stories found in contemporary newspapers, as well as the small number of scorebooks and filled-in scorecards that can be tracked down, Ashwill wrote. Names of those who played in integrated organized white leagues are boldfaced, and those who played in integrated major leagues are also italicized. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. They receivedbetween $1 to $1.50 a day for meal money. What about the other great players? After spotting the Black newspaper The Chicago Defender in his universitys library stacks and knowing its historical importance, he dove into the reels for the 1920 season and was surprised to see incredibly thorough coverage and box scores for the Negro National League.\n\nFrom there, he started collecting box scores and compiling statistics pretty much right away, Ashwill said. March 16, 2007 - Hubert "Country" Glenn, passes away. Pedro Dibut). All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only. Current Greats: Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, . During his long career, Frank played on 7 pennant-winners with the Kansas City Monarchs. The list does not include Negro league players who only played in the minor leagues and White Hispanic players who played in both the Negro Leagues and MLB prior to full integration (ex. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. Buck Leonard: Walter (Buck) Leonard combined with Josh Gibson for Negro baseballs best 1-2 home-run punch. Logos were compiled by the amazing SportsLogos.net. Ray Dandridge: Fifty-eight year old Ray Dandridge lives in Newark, N.J., and is a scout for the San Francisco Giants. An excellent all-round ballplayer and a teammate of such greats as Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston, Jimmie is a Chicago resident where he is employed at the post office. Then I'll create my own. There's a huge amount of information about Latin American baseball that still needs to be processed -- Black Americans played professional baseball in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, Ashwill said. Copyright 2020 NPR. Wells, 66, is a New York City resident. He says his greatest thrill was a home-run he hit in the 1940 classic in Chicago. We know which were the pitchers' parks (Chicago's Schorling Park, for example) and which were the hitters' parks (Stars Park in St. Louis and the Catholic Protectory Oval in the Bronx, home of the New York Lincoln Giants). Of these, nine have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and two of them (Greason and Mays) are still alive. Suttles pictured back row, far left. Bill Greason, Clyde Golden, Ron Teasley and Willie Mays. Third baseman Hank Thompson appeared in a game for the St. Louis Browns (now the Baltimore Orioles) on July 17, two days before outfielder Willard Brown joined him on the Browns' roster. A high average hitter and an excellent first baseman, Buck played in 12 All-Star games. At the onset of the digital age, enough now-aging players were still alive to share their experiences. Born May 6, 1931, Willie Mays is the youngest. As Lou Moore, a professor at Grand Valley State University, noted: from 1949 to 1959 - two years after Jackie Robinson's debut season - former Negro League players won all but two of the. You know the names: Satchel Paige. But you dont know their numbers -- at least, not with the same devotion baseball fans have to statistics like Ted Williams .406 batting average or Hank Aarons 755 home runs. Members of the Baseball Hall of Fame are noted with a . A speedy switch-hitter, Newt writes that Martin Dihigo and Dave Brown were the two greatest pitchers he ever faced. Buck lives in Rocky Mount, N.C., where he owns a realty agency. A version of this story was first published in November, 2020, a few weeks before MLB announced that Negro League stats were being made part of the official record. Sports Pulse: Players, celebs and politicians tip their hats in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues. Theyve established -- though its no surprise -- that the speedy Bell holds the single-season record with 49 stolen bases for the Stars in 1929. Josh Gibson holds the all-time home run record with 238 and Smokey Joe Williams struck out 1,571 batters in his 25-year career. The most important sources are the Black weekly newspapers (Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore Afro-American, Kansas City Call, etc.) We still have to separate truth from hyperbole, but more analysis has become available. ","contextualCaption":null,"contextualAspectRatio":null,"credit":null,"format":"jpg","templateUrl":"https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/{formatInstructions}/v1605643461/mlb/lv9mhm1fsyjmr30kii4r","type":"photo"},{"__typename":"Markdown","content":"Thats the type of work that Ashwill, who currently works as a freelance academic editor and runs the Agate Type baseball blog, has done since he began researching the Negro Leagues 20 years ago. Suttles home run record isnt the only record theyve discovered. America's Pastime. FORBES: And I just wonder if I'm worthy of representing, speaking about the Negro League because when I got involved, things was easier for me than it was for the one before me. His career was spent almost entirely playing in all black minor or semi-pro leagues, most of which were located in southern Florida. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. Mioso fell short on Golden Era votes in 2011 and 2014 . The museum has pushed back its year-long celebration of the centennial to next year and renamed it Negro Leagues 101. Contact SABR, https://sabr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/research-collection4_350x300.jpg, /wp-content/uploads/2020/02/sabr_logo.png. For our latest update I checked through the mainstream daily newspapers in St. Louis and picked up three more St. Louis Stars games -- and Suttles homered in two of them.","type":"markdown"},{"__typename":"PhotoPart","caption":"The 1930 St. Louis Stars. the official stats partner of the NBA, NHL and MLB. Foster still retains a strong interest in baseball. "Going forward, in the 1930s following the Great Depression, salaries of Black players were about the same amount as the 1920s," Lester said. Fortunately, that has recently changed with the recognition of the Negro Leagues as a Major League, but for decades that wasn't the case. And now I look back and I say, oh, my God. So they slept in the buses. At 5'3", she hit .273 and pitched to a 33-8 record for the Indianapolis Clowns from 1953 to 1955. Streeters biggest thrill in baseball was to hit a home run. He jumped to the Lincoln Giants of the Eastern Colored League in 1923 and pitched with them for 2 years. Major League Baseball has a day to honor the leagues set for next month. As it stands, Newcombe is the oldest living man to play in the Negro Leagues at their major-league level. But you've got to establish a basic record first.. The list of teams with which he played includes the largely forgotten Miami Globetrotters, Hollywood Redbirds, Miami Red Sox, Belle Glade Redwings, Florida Cuban Giants, the Lucky Stars, the Danny Dodgers; Ft. Lauderdale Braves, Pompano Beach Yankees, Ft. Lauderdale Lucky Stars, Ft. Lauderdale Gray Sox, and the Buffalo Red Sox (a travelling team that appears to have played many of its games in West Virginia and Pennsylvania). ","type":"markdown"},{"__typename":"ExternalEmbed","data":{"__typename":"ExternalEmbedContent","html":", #Spotlight In February of 1920, The Chicago Defender previewed the formation of the Negro National League - Kansas City Selected for Meeting of Baseball Magnates - https://t.co/VANcXcLmL0 pic.twitter.com/KfBEDCalWr, A copy of the 1969 Macmillan baseball encyclopedia for show and tell @sabr. Just this month, and nearly 80 years after Suttles career ended, Ashwill was able to add two more home runs to his tally, bringing his total to 32.\n\nBasically, our earlier version of the 1926 Negro National League relied heavily on the Black weekly newspapers for games played in St. Louis -- in this case the Chicago Defender (which was distributed nationally) and the St. Louis Argus, Ashwill wrote. Now 66, Bell lives in St. Louis where he is a guard at City Hall. Copyright 2000-2022 Sports Reference LLC. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, The subreddit for the bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players. The World Series winners that same year earned $5,959.64 and the losers $3,820.29. MINNIE. TRIBOU: Bob Kendrick heads the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum there. Now a Los Angeles resident, Evans remembers playing against almost every great ballplayer, black and white, during the late 1920s and early 1930s. However, he played for minor-league clubs: What Jackson did not do was to play in any of the all-black leagues traditionally thought of as the Negro Major Leagues. His salary was less than 5% of what white players were earning. Today . The color line in baseball is also probably the most profound case of historical injustice in the history of modern sports -- and the injustice most definitely includes the failure to properly record both the identities and the achievements of thousands of professional ballplayers., Before the Seamheads database, Negro League statistics were sparse and spottily updated. Paige probably took a pay cut when he joined the Cleveland Indians in 1948.". That means numbers are always changing here and there. Full-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. 'THEY TRULY DESERVE IT:'Families of Negro Leaguers rejoice in MLB's decision to recognize league, OPINION: After vowing change, Black candidates shut out again of MLB front office jobs. Willie Foster: Called by many the greatest left-handed pitcher in the black leagues, Willie won 4 World Series games in his long career, and may be the only pitcher, black or white, to have pitched a complete 9-inning All-Star game. A family friend used to play for the Black Yankees, Bob Scott. The records, as they proved with Suttles, are not static either. Well Hank Aaron and Willie Mays are still alive. This page was last edited on 27 January 2023, at 00:27. They didn't care about making history. And they couldn't go in places to eat, so one person would go to the back door and get the food for all the players. O'Neil also made history when the Cubs hired him as a coach in 1962, making him the first Black member of an AL/NL coaching staff as part of Chicago's "College of Coaches." It's just that you rarely get where are they nows on the guys who played 3-4 forgettable seasons,whether they were in 1930s or 1990s. Sam Streeter: The star pitcher for the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the 1930s, Sam pitched for the West in the inaugural Negro leagues All-Star game in 1933. Chuck Harmon played under alias of Charlie Fine for the Clowns so as not to violate his college basketball eligibility. Phone: 602.496.1460 I was wondering if there are any players left from those times, There's actually a good amount. Frank Duncan: A Kansas City native, Frank, 69, now operates a tavern in his home town. How Cool Papa Bell was so fast that he could hit the light switch and be in bed before the lights went out. Much of the play-by-play, game results, and transaction information both shown and used to create certain data sets was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by RetroSheet. So you won't let me play with you. All rights reserved. You can't really settle on a few sacred numbers the way you can for MLB records.. Or write about sports? While the weeklies tried to cover every game they could, deadlines and limited space meant they often had to leave out a few games. If history belongs to the record keepers, then these record keepers weren't interested. Louis Stars, Southern League of Colored Base Ballists (1886), International League of Independent Professional Base Ball Clubs (1906), National Association of Colored Baseball Clubs of the United States and Cuba (19071909), West Coast Negro Baseball Association (1946), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Negro_league_baseball_players_who_played_in_Major_League_Baseball&oldid=1137262492, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Served in the US Army during WWII 19421944, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19441945, Served in the US Army during WWII 19441945, Served in the US Marine Corp during WWII 19431945, Served in the US Army during Korean War 19521953, Served in the US Army during WWII 19431945, Served in the US Army during WWII 19421943, Served in the US Army during WWII 19411945, Served in the US Army during WWII 19441946, Served in the US Army during WWII 19431947, Served in the US Army during WWII 19431946, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19441946, Served in the US Army during Korean War 19511953, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19431946, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19431945, Served in the US Marine Corp during WWII 19431945 and the Korean War 19511952, Served in the US Army during Korean War 19511952, Served in the US Army during WWII 19421945, This page was last edited on 3 February 2023, at 18:10. Lester said the average monthly salary of a Black player in the early 1920s was $175 a month. Many thanks to him. The Encyclopedia and various books and projects over the years printed stats for a selection of Negro League stars," Ashwill explained -- picking and choosing what information to present, and often excluding players who appeared in fewer than 10 games. Because we compile fielding statistics, we're able to know that, for example, Dobie Moore, the Kansas City Monarchs shortstop in the 1920s, was a great fielding shortstop. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Jimmie Crutchfield: A slender outfielder, Jimmie signed with the great Pittsburgh Crawfords when he was only 19 years old. , Season Summaries, Ballparks, Owners, Player Bios, 1946 Negro World Series, Contribute, Of course, Josh Gibson and some of the other big names have passed on, but a lot of the legendary stars are still alive and well and living in well, why dont we call the roll of some of the more familiar names, men like . They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues after the Great Depression. Recovering it is a constant, ongoing struggle. In 2020, MLB recognized the Nego Leagues as major leagues. 1928 St. Louis Stars, This List of Negro league baseball players who played in Major League Baseball is largely based on the research compiled by the Center for Negro League Baseball Research. . For our latest update I checked through the mainstream daily newspapers in St. Louis and picked up three more St. Louis Stars games -- and Suttles homered in two of them.. , Every Sports Reference Social Media Account, Site Last Updated: Saturday, March 4, 12:52AM. After contacting Lester, co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and chairman of SABR's Negro Leagues Research Committee, he provided data that was absolutely staggering. The complete list is divided into four pages to reduce the size: The players below are some of the most notable of those who played Negro league baseball, beginning with the codification of baseball's color line barring African American players (about 1892), past the re-integration in 1946 of the sport, up until the Negro leagues finally expired about 1962. Mays played his rookie year in 1948 with the Birmingham Black Barons. They went out and did something about it. Then in 1947, he broke baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. A native of Texas, Brown is reported to have pitched as early as 1917 with the Dallas Black Giants. One of two players in history to win the Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and MVP in his career (Verlander being the other). A great 3rd baseman, Dandridge compiled a .455 batting average in 3 Negro All-Star games. There would be the Royals dressed as the Monarchs, the Tigers as the Stars, the Pirates as the Crawfords or Grays, Triple-A Memphis as the Red Sox, Double-A Birmingham as the Black Barons, High-A. All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only. This article was written byJohn M. Coates, This article was published in 1972 Baseball Research Journal, The recent election of Satchel Paige to the Hall of Fame brings back memories of the old Negro leagues and the men who starred in them. Newt Allen: For 20 years, Newt starred as the Kansas City Monarchs slick-fielding 2nd baseman. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. But Minnie Forbes sympathizes with the many athletes who were good enough to play in the major leagues but never got a shot. That means its taken countless hours of research to fill in the gaps and put together the database. If baseball (rightfully) believes that recognizing those players is important (and it is) then why not fully recognize them? TRIBOU: Minnie Forbes will keep sharing her stories with younger generations, and others will, too. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. Josh Gibson. The other is that sources like the Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia -- which basically set the standard for baseball statistics when it was released in 1969 -- wasn't all that invested in featuring Negro League records. For NPR News, I'm Doug Tribou in Ann Arbor, Mich. (SOUNDBITE OF A FOREST MIGHTY BLACK'S "REBIRTH"). I first saw this idea mentioned in one sentence in a Deadspin story and wondered why this wasn't something discussed much more than it has been. SIERRA: Yeah, a hundred dollars a month. Just having a few stories here and there was not remotely enough. So, for example we've put together the first comprehensive analysis of Negro League park effects, and incorporated that into our metrics, Ashwill wrote. Larry Doby debuted with the Cleveland Indians on July 5. Lee lives in Washington, D.C. George Scales: One of the strongest-hitting 2nd basemen of his time and a .311 lifetime hitter, George played in the big-time for nearly 25 years with 6 different clubs. For example, here, courtesy of Ashwill, are the pages from a 1941-42 Baltimore Elite Giants scorebook showing the Elites beating the Philadelphia Stars on Aug. 16, 1942: The biggest myth of them all is that the history of Negro League baseball is nothing but blurry, hard-to-substantiate legends and tall tales, Ashwill wrote in an email to MLB.com. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. Its also why there are always new updates. All these early leagues were financially shaky. Remember these four names: Rev. As protests over racial injustice in the U.S. continue, Major League Baseball is honoring the Negro Leagues that showcased Black baseball players at a time the sport was segregated. **, Press J to jump to the feed. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. Researchers are still looking to add fielding statistics, left/right splits and secondary pitching and batting stats for many Negro League seasons, especially those in the 1940s. Since the Negro Leauges were still around several years after Jackie Robinson's debut, I would imagine there are still a few dozen former players who are still alive. MINNIE FORBES: It was terrible for the players at that time. We present them here for purely educational purposes. Born September 3, 1924 Bill Greason is the oldest player on this list. A lot of the earlier versions of Negro league statistics only gave you batting averages, home runs, pitchers' won-lost records, basic stuff," Ashwill said. ", "So take a ballplayer like Monte Irvin, in 1948, who made $5,000 with the New YorkGiants," Lester said, "or $833.33 a month. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. And I really do mean today. Richard Kent, Sam Sheppard, Dr. J.W McClelland and Dr. G.B. This is not a complete or exhaustive list of all the organizations and individuals who have kept the Negro Leagues alive, but it is easy to contribute to the four following organizations whether . Pittsburgh soon produced two of the greatest teams of all time, the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, featuring such stars as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and many more. That's almost 19 times what the Black players received. Find out more. Black players earnedless because they were Jim Crow'd. Win Expectancy, Run Expectancy, and Leverage Index calculations provided by Tom Tango of InsideTheBook.com, and co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. An additional 35 or so players played on a Negro league team after 1950. We will also be adding the Puerto Rican Winter League at some point.. In 1924, the first year of the Colored World Series, the share of the winners, the Kansas City Monarchs, was $307.96, says Lester. Logos were compiled by the amazing SportsLogos.net. An outfielder and a solid hitter, Page resides in Pittsburgh, where he operates a bowling alley. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. To this day, no one apparently has any idea of his whereabouts or even whether he is still living. They played during the decline of the Negro leagues, after the beginning of integration. The service requires full cookie support in order to view this website. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. America is about democracy and opportunity but it's also just as much about cash. He is Dean of Men at Alcorn College in Lorman, Mississippi, and also serves as baseball coach. List of Negro league baseball players (AD), List of Negro league baseball players (EL), List of Negro league baseball players (MR), List of Negro league baseball players (SZ), List of first black MLB players by team and date, List of player profiles from the Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lists_of_Negro_league_baseball_players&oldid=1087987010, This page was last edited on 15 May 2022, at 16:27. Do you have a sports website? TRIBOU: Pedro Sierra pitched in the Negro Leagues for several seasons in the 1950s. Many thanks to him. While baseball acknowledgingthese Black players is important, it should only be a first step. Dennis Biddle lives down the street from my grandparents. I heard about it, but I hadn't experienced it. Ray Brown, , 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords, The Hilldale Club, the team that lost, took home $193.23. The stories, however, keep alive the memory of a man who became bigger than the game. A good right-handed hitter, Duncan is always mentioned as one of black baseballs best catchers. But before Paige there was baseball's serial pay disparity. Basically, our earlier version of the 1926 Negro National League relied heavily on the Black weekly newspapers for games played in St. Louis -- in this case the Chicago Defender (which was distributed nationally) and the St. Louis Argus, Ashwill wrote. Mike Trout As protests over racial injustice in the U.S. continue, Major League Baseball is marking the anniversary of the Negro Leagues. Last I knew he was still alive but he is hard to contact sometimes. He played for the Louisville Clippers, and later was traded with Jesse Mitchell to the Birmingham Black Barons for a used team bus. She lives in Grand Rapids, Mich. FORBES: The players traveled, and they had nowhere to stay because of the discrimination. Every Sports Reference Social Media Account. I know it seems that the civil rights movement was a while go, but it's truly just recent. Of them, only 9 are still alive as of Janury 26, 2023. The coming seasons brought many more signings. Paige, now 65 and a Kansas City resident, is by far the best known of these old stars. You go through the most important sources for a given year, collect the box scores, construct a schedule, go back and try to fill in gaps, double and triple check everything, then type in the games.. Just this month, and nearly 80 years after Suttles career ended, Ashwill was able to add two more home runs to his tally, bringing his total to 32. He says his greatest thrill was a home-run he hit in the 1940 classic in Chicago. Buck lives in Rocky Mount, N.C., where he owns a realty agency. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues after the Great Depression. Full-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. Many of the men that played in the last era of the Negro Leagues (1937-1957) died in the past 18 years, and a good portion in the past ten or eleven years. Join our linker program. 1924 Kansas City Monarchs, SIERRA: The Clowns are paid a hundred dollars a month. Center for Negro League Baseball Research, First black player for St. Louis Browns and New York Giants, First black player for Philadelphia Athletics, First black player for Pittsburgh Pirates, "Negro League Players Who Made the Major Leagues", "Negro Leaguers Who Served With The Armed Forces in WWII", List of Negro league baseball postseason games, Atlanta Black Crackers/Indianapolis ABCs (IV), Indianapolis ABCs (II)/New OrleansSt. I remember reading about a living umpire from those times when he was interviewed, say, 3-5 years ago? But thousands of Black and Latino players endured bigotry and racist taunts. While the weeklies tried to cover every game they could, deadlines and limited space meant they often had to leave out a few games. Win Expectancy, Run Expectancy, and Leverage Index calculations provided by Tom Tango of InsideTheBook.com, and co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. RHP Satchel Paige: The most famous Negro Leagues player, the age-defying Paige stayed young long enough to pitch in the majors -- including the World Series -- as a 42-year-old rookie in 1948. Turkey Stearnes. Buck O'Neil, Hall of Fame. The unparalleled Rube Foster started the first Negro League in 1920, with such dominant teams as the Chicago American Giants and the Kansas City Monarchs. Michigan Radio's Doug Tribou spoke to the only surviving team owner and others about the legacy of the legendary leagues. All rights reserved.