Fred Bankhead (November 22, 1912 – December 17, 1972) was an American

Negro league 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 ...

second baseman in the 1930s and 1940s. A native of Sulligent, Alabama, Bankhead's brothers Sam,

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, and Garnett all also played in the Negro leagues, and his brother

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played

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. Bankhead joined the Negro leagues in 1936.Black Barons of Birmingham: The South's Greatest Negro League Team and Its Players, by Larry Powell, published McFarland, (June 13, 2009), He made his debut playing as a reserve infielder for the

Birmingham Black Barons The Birmingham Black Barons were a Negro league baseball team that played from 1920 until 1960. They shared their home field of Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, with the white Birmingham Barons, usually drawing larger crowds and equal pr ...

. He played second base for the

Memphis Red Sox The Memphis Red Sox were an American Negro league baseball team that was active from 1920 to 1959. Originally named the Barber College Baseball Club, the team was initially owned and operated by Arthur P. Martin, a local Memphis barber. In the la ...

from 1938 to 1947. Bankhead received 490,000 votes for third place in the 1939

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 Salm ...

. In 1942, Bankhead was again selected to the East-West All Star Game.

Personal life

Bankhead was born in Sulligent to Garnett and Eva Bankhead in 1912. He was the second oldest of 7 children, having an older brother, Sam, and younger siblings; Robert, Mildred, Frances, Calvin, and Garnett. In 1938, he moved to Memphis with his wife, Emma, to play for the Red Sox. In the early 1940s, Bankhead visited Puerto Rico a number of times. He died in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

in 1972 at age 60.Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; ''Social Security Death Index, Master File''

References

External links

an
Baseball-Reference Black Baseball Stats
an
Seamheads
1912 births 1972 deaths Birmingham Black Barons players Memphis Red Sox players New York Black Yankees players 20th-century African-American sportspeople Baseball infielders {{Negro-league-baseball-infielder-stub