Lafayette Washington (January 26, 1915 – April 11, 1975) 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 ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

in the 1940s. A native of

Alma, Arkansas Alma is a city in Crawford County, Arkansas, United States. It is located within the Arkansas River Valley at the edge of the Ozark Mountains; the city is the sixth largest in the Fort Smith metropolitan area. The population was 5,419 at the 20 ...

, Washington made his Negro leagues debut in 1940 with the St. Louis–New Orleans Stars. He went on to play 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 ...

and Cincinnati Clowns, and finished his career in 1946 with the

Seattle Steelheads The Seattle Steelheads were a Negro league baseball team from Seattle, Washington. Owned by Abe Saperstein, they were also known as the Harlem Globetrotters and Cincinnati Crescents, though occasionally the teams split and played each other. F ...

. Washington 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 1975 at age 60.

References

External links

an
Seamheads
1915 births 1975 deaths People from Alma, Arkansas Baseball players from Arkansas Birmingham Black Barons players Cincinnati Clowns players St. Louis–New Orleans Stars players Seattle Steelheads players 20th-century African-American sportspeople {{negro-league-baseball-bio-stub