James "Fireball" Colzie (June 12, 1920 – March 23, 2010) was a Negro league baseball

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 ...

. He played mostly for the

Indianapolis Clowns The Indianapolis Clowns were a professional baseball team in the Negro American League. Tracing their origins back to the 1930s, the Clowns were the last of the Negro league teams to disband, continuing to play exhibition games into the 1980s. Th ...

and the

Atlanta Black Crackers The Atlanta Black Crackers (originally known as the Atlanta Cubs and later briefly the Indianapolis ABCs) were a professional Negro league baseball team which played during the early to mid-20th century. They were primarily a minor Negro league ...

. He served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

.Baseball in War Time
/ref> On July 20, 1947, the Clowns' team bus was struck by a car, resulting in Colzie dislocating his knee. Colzie sued the driver of the car and was awarded $4,000. His son, Neal Colzie, was a

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

player.

References

External links

an
Baseball-Reference Black Baseball stats
an
Seamheads
1920 births 2010 deaths Indianapolis Clowns players Atlanta Black Crackers players Baseball pitchers Baseball players from Georgia (U.S. state) United States Army personnel of World War II People from Montezuma, Georgia Military personnel from Georgia (U.S. state) African Americans in World War II United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II 21st-century African-American people African-American United States Army personnel {{Negro-league-baseball-pitcher-stub