Clarence Reginald Jenkins (January 10, 1898 - December 6, 1968), nicknamed "Fats", was an American professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player from about 1920 to 1940. He played when both professional sports were racially segregated as an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

. Primarily he played

left field In baseball, a left fielder, abbreviated LF, is an outfielder who plays defense in left field. Left field is the area of the outfield to the left of a person standing at home plate and facing towards the pitcher's mound. In the numbering system ...

in baseball's

Negro leagues The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

, and point guard for the

barnstorming Barnstorming was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks individually or in groups that were called flying circuses. Devised to "impress people with the skill of pilots and the sturdiness of planes," it became popular in ...

New York Renaissance The New York Renaissance, also known as the Renaissance Big R Five and as the Rens, were the first black-owned, all-black, fully-professional basketball team in history, established in October 1923, by Robert "Bob" Douglas. They were named after t ...

on the hardwood, where he was also team captain. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2021.

Biography

Jenkins was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

where he played basketball for the St. Christopher's Club youth team and then for the first teams that were named "Colored Basketball World's Champions" by the ''New York Age'' in 1917, 1918 and 1919. Next he played for the top team of the early 1920s,

Cum Posey Cumberland Willis "Cum" Posey Jr. (June 20, 1890 – March 28, 1946) was an American baseball player, manager, and team owner in the Negro leagues, as well as a professional basketball player and team owner. Early life Cumberland Jr. was born i ...

's Loendi Big Five based in Pittsburgh, and for the

, the last of the Colored World Champions in 1925. From that season through 1939 he captained the "Rens", whom the Basketball Hall of Fame inducted collectively in 1963. In the 1939–40 season Fats captained the powerful Chicago Crusaders which included his old Rens teammate

David "Big Dave" DeJernett David "Big Dave" DeJernett (February 22, 1912 – August 4, 1964) was a pioneer of integration in early basketball in the United States. He is best known for leading the integrated Washington Hatchets to the Indiana state title as a high school ...

as well as future Ren Bricktop Wright. The all-black

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

were said to be "sidestepped" from the Chicago World's Pro Tourney that spring, perhaps because Jenkins and Wright had abruptly left the team in a huff over giving sparkplug Agis Bray sufficient playing time, Meanwhile, Jenkins played Negro league baseball more than twenty seasons with numerous teams based in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland; he may be most often associated with the

New York Black Yankees The New York Black Yankees were a professional Negro league baseball team based in New York City; Paterson, New Jersey; and Rochester, New York. Beginning as the independent Harlem Stars, the team was renamed the New York Black Yankees in 1932 and ...

, although he managed Brooklyn in 1940. His known career batting and on-base averages are .325 and .392.Hogan, Larry. . Pre-Negro Leagues Candidate Profile. Baseball Hall of Fame. February 2006. Retrieved 2010-06-21. The

East-West All-Star Game East West (or East and West) may refer to: *East–West dichotomy, the contrast between Eastern and Western society or culture Arts and entertainment Books, journals and magazines *''East, West'', an anthology of short stories written by Salma ...

was established during his fourteenth season, and he played in the first and third renditions. He was a quick outfielder and baserunner, which fits his denomination as the fastest man in basketball. Jenkins died at age 70 in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

References

External links

an
Baseball-Reference Black Baseball stats
an
Seamheads
*.
New York Renaissance (enshrined 1963)
at the Basketball Hall of Fame. {{DEFAULTSORT:Jenkins, Fats 1898 births 1968 deaths African-American basketball players American men's basketball players Baseball players from New York (state) Baltimore Black Sox players Bacharach Giants players Brooklyn Eagles players Harrisburg Giants players Lincoln Giants players New York Black Yankees players New York Renaissance players Philadelphia Hilldale Giants players Philadelphia Stars players Pittsburgh Crawfords players Point guards Washington Black Senators players 20th-century African-American sportspeople