Baseball Reference Blog

The Final Negro Leagues Thursday of the Month at Immaculate Grid

Posted by Adam Darowski on February 29, 2024

Today is the final day of Black History Month and we want to thank you for joining us in celebrating the Negro Leagues each Thursday this month. In 2021, Baseball Reference dramatically expanded coverage of the Negro Leagues as part of our project “The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues.” The major Negro Leagues (currently seven leagues that operated between 1920-1948) are now listed with the National League and American League as major leagues.

This month at Immaculate Grid, we featured:

  1. Feb 1: Players who Played Pitcher, Catcher, and Shortstop in the Major Negro Leagues
  2. Feb 8: Players who Hit .300, Hit 10 Home Runs, or Won 10 Games in a season in the Major Negro Leagues
  3. Feb 15: Hall of Famers, All-Stars, and Players with a sub-3.00 ERA season in the Major Negro Leagues
  4. Feb 22: Players who Played First Base, Third Base, and Outfield in the Major Negro Leagues

Today, we will feature players from the Negro Major Leagues who played for the Dodgers, played for the Indians (now Guardians), and were born outside of the 50 United States & DC.

Players from the Major Negro Leagues who played for the Dodgers

There are seven players who appeared in the major Negro Leagues between 1920 and 1948 who played for the Brooklyn (and then Los Angeles) Dodgers. They are:

  1. Dan Bankhead
  2. Joe Black
  3. Roy Campanella
  4. Jim Gilliam
  5. Don Newcombe
  6. Jackie Robinson
  7. Bob Wilson

Jackie Robinson, of course, was the first player to re-break the AL/NL color line in April of 1947.

Players from the Major Negro Leagues who played for the Indians/Guardians

  1. Larry Doby
  2. Luke Easter
  3. Dave Hoskins
  4. Sam Jones
  5. Minnie Miñoso
  6. Don Newcombe
  7. Satchel Paige
  8. Dave Pope
  9. José Santiago
  10. Harry Simpson
  11. Al Smith
  12. Quincy Trouppe

Larry Doby broke the color line in the American League just three months after Robinson did the same in the National League.

Players from the Major Negro Leagues who were Born Outside the 50 United States and DC

Unlike the American and National Leagues, the Negro Leagues opened its doors to dark-skinned Latin American stars. In turn, the Latin American leagues welcomed top Negro League talent each Winter. The brand of baseball being played during the Winter months in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Mexico was vibrant and star-studded.

There are four Hall of Famers who played in the Negro Leagues and were born outside of the United States. All four were born in Cuba:

  1. Cristóbal Torriente made an immediate splash in the Negro Leagues, leading in batting average (.411), on-base percentage (.479), slugging percentage (.606), and OPS+ (223).
  2. Martín Dihigo played nine years in the major Negro Leagues while also playing all over Latin America. One of the true two-way stars in history, he had a 138 OPS+ and a 141 ERA+.
  3. José Méndez was already 35 years old when the Negro National League was formed. Three years later, he led the Monarchs to the very first Negro World Series title, going 12-4 with a 3.18 ERA and winning the series-clinching game.
  4. Minnie Miñoso was finally inducted to the Hall of Fame after an incredible career that saw him collect at least 4,460 professional hits in the Negro Leagues, AL/NL, US Minor Leagues, Cuban League, Mexican League, and Mexican minors.

There were many other Latin American stars in the Negro Leagues that you should know.

From Cuba

  1. CF Alejandro Oms (“El Caballero”) had a significant major Negro League career (hitting .329 in seven seasons) while also winning three Batting Titles in Cuba. He was a finalist for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006 but fell short of induction.
  2. 1B/CF/P/MGR Lázaro Salazar had a brief major Negro League career, but was a legitimate triple threat. With long careers in Mexico and Cuba, he was a top hitter, top pitcher, and one of the greatest managers in Latin American baseball (winning 14 league titles). He did all this despite his tragic death at the age of 44.
  3. SS Silvio García was rumored to be one of Branch Rickey’s initial choices to break the National League’s color line, but his temper may have held him back. Playing in the US, Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Nicaragua, the shortstop totaled at least 2,646 professional hits. He won multiple MVP Awards in Cuba, an ERA title in Puerto Rico, and a Triple Crown in Canada.
  4. P Ramon Bragaña played a single season in the major Negro Leagues at age 19, but in a long career as a pitcher and manager in Mexico (as well as Cuba and the Dominican Republic), he won at least 300 games. He could swing the bat a little, too. He hit 17 home runs in Mexico in 1942, second in the league behind Monte Irvin (and more than twice as many as fellow 2-way Cuban player Dihigo).
  5. C José María Fernández played in parts of 28 Negro League seasons (14 in the major Negro Leagues). He also played a record 24 seasons in his native Cuba and had a long career as a manager.
  6. P/1B Eustaquio “Bombín” Pedroso was a two-way player in the early 20th Century. By the time he reached the major Negro Leagues, he was already in his mid-30s. But in his earlier days he could hit .300 while anchoring a pitching staff.
  7. P Luis Tiant was the father of the famous 2x American League ERA Title winner. The elder Tiant was a workhorse southpaw in his native Cuba and helped propel the 1947 New York Cubans to a Negro League World Series title.
  8. P Manuel “Cocaína” García got his nickname because hitters “seemed drugged by his pitches” per historian John Holway. He only briefly played in the Negro Major Leagues with unimpressive results. But he won at least 270 games pitching in six countries (while also hitting .294 himself).
  9. LF Agustín Bejerano briefly played in the major Negro Leagues at a very young age (and hit .292), but he had a significant career in Mexico (hitting over .300 with lightning speed).
  10. 3B Héctor Rodríguez’s Baseball Reference page shows 41 hits with the New York Cubans in 1944 and 108 hits for the Chicago White Sox in 108. But in his long Cuban League, Mexican League, and Minor League careers, he pushed his professional hit total to at least 3,847.
  11. OF Bernardo Baró hit over .300 in the major Negro Leagues and in his native Cuba. He stole 30 bases while hitting .343 for the Cuban Stars in 1921.
  12. OF Pedro Formental’s major Negro League career consisted of only 50 at bats for the Memphis Red Sox in 1947. But the flamboyant outfielder had several huge seasons in Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela. He hit .560 (14-for-25) in the 1953 Caribbean Series for Habana.
  13. OF Valentín Dreke hit .330 in the major Negro Leagues during the 1920s, including capturing the Negro National League batting title in 1924 (.389). He also hit .305 in his native Cuba.
  14. C Ray Noble played for both the New York Cubans and New York Giants. He nearly added another 1,000 hits in the minor leagues (to go with 130 home runs). He hit 71 home runs in the Cuban League, more than any other player.

From Puerto Rico

  1. OF Pancho Coimbre played only four seasons in the major Negro Leagues, but he hit .300 in all of them and was an All-Star twice. The Tony Gwynn of Puerto Rico, he hit .337 in 13 seasons (he was already nearly 30 when the league began play) and struck out only 20 times in 1,750 at bats.
  2. OF Luis “Canena” Márquez played three seasons in the Negro Leagues (an All-Star in two of them with Homestead) and two seasons in the National League. Between his minor league stats (1,738 hits) and extensive play in Latin America (The Puerto Rican League’s all-time leader in hits, runs, doubles, and total bases), he collected at least 3,468 hits.

From the Dominican Republic

  1. OF Tetelo Vargas is perhaps most well-known in the United States for being the single-season batting average record holder on Baseball Reference (.471 in 1943) due to the addition of Negro League records. He was a superstar who played baseball for 33 years in six countries. He won batting titles in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic. He was an All-Star in Venezuela. In 5,219 at bats he hit .323—and the vast majority of those at bats came in his 30s and 40s. For more about “The Dominican Deer,” watch this presentation about Tetelo Vargas with Baseball Reference’s Adam Darowski and Jorge Colón Delgado, Official Historian of the Liga de Béisbol Profesional de Puerto Rico.

From Panama

  1. SS Frankie Austin hit .343 in five major Negro League seasons, winning the batting title in 1945 (.375). He was an All-Star in four of the seasons. He had a long career in the Pacific Coast League in the 1950s, adding another 1,236 hits.
  2. P Pat Scantlebury was a top pitcher for the New York Cubans in the 1940s. An All-Star in 1946, he won at least 184 games (against 138 losses) in the majors, minors, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. He had a long career in his native Panama for which stats are not available.
  3. C-3B León Kellman hit nearly .300 in the Negro Leagues and Mexico. He also had a long career in Panama for which statistics are not available. He played in the East-West All-Star game each year from 1947-1950 and in the Negro World Series with Cleveland in 1947. He had a long career as a manager, mostly in Panama.

Many non-major league stats referenced above are from Adam Darowski’s research on Outsider Baseball All-Stars.

See all players born outside the 50 United States & DC who played in the Major Negro Leagues on Stathead

Learn More About the Negro Leagues

We highly recommend visiting and supporting the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. The Sports Reference team visited the museum in 2022 and it was an unforgettable experience.

Further reading on Baseball Reference:

  1. The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues: Includes articles from prominent Negro League historians and family members of Black baseball players
  2. The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues podcast: Hosted by Curtis Harris and produced by Sports Reference.
  3. The Negro Leagues Are Major Leagues: A Resource for Educators: A resource for educators to share the incredible story of the Negro Leagues. (It also is a great way for anyone interested in the Negro Leagues to quickly get up to speed.)

Thank you for joining us to celebrate the Negro Leagues this month at Immaculate Grid.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 29th, 2024 at 6:00 am and is filed under Immaculate Grid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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