Frederick Douglas Downer (September 20, 1896 – March 10, 1986) 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 ...

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to cat ...

and

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

in the early 1920s. A native of

Royston, Georgia Royston is a city in Franklin, Hart, and Madison counties in the U.S. state of Georgia. The population was 2,649 at the 2020 census. History A post office called Royston has been in operation since 1878. The community was named after W.A. Royston ...

, Downer attended

Morehouse College , mottoeng = And there was light (literal translation of Latin itself translated from Hebrew: "And light was made") , type = Private historically black men's liberal arts college , academic_affiliations ...

. In 1921, he played outfield and managed the Pittsburgh Keystones, and also played for the

Cleveland Tate Stars The Cleveland Tate Stars were a Negro league baseball team from 1919 through 1923. They played as an independent (non-affiliated) team from 1919 through 1921, and joined the Negro National League in 1922. In their only season as a full-fledged le ...

in 1923. In 1953, Downer made news in ''

Jet Jet, Jets, or The Jet(s) may refer to: Aerospace * Jet aircraft, an aircraft propelled by jet engines ** Jet airliner ** Jet engine ** Jet fuel * Jet Airways, an Indian airline * Wind Jet (ICAO: JET), an Italian airline * Journey to Enceladus a ...

'' magazine for the warm greeting given him by

Baseball Hall of Famer The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-re ...

and fellow Royston native

Ty Cobb Tyrus Raymond Cobb (December 18, 1886 – July 17, 1961), nicknamed "the Georgia Peach", was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) center fielder. He was born in rural Narrows, Georgia. Cobb spent 22 seasons with the Detroit Tigers, the las ...

upon their encounter at

Wrigley Field Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago Wh ...

. Downer died in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in 1986 at age 89.

References

External links

* an
Seamheads
1896 births 1986 deaths Pittsburgh Keystones players Cleveland Tate Stars players 20th-century African-American sportspeople Baseball outfielders
Fred Downer
at

SABR The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is a membership organization dedicated to fostering the research and dissemination of the history and record of baseball primarily through the use of statistics. Established in Cooperstown, New ...

(Baseball BioProject) {{Negro-league-baseball-outfielder-stub