"Prince" Joe Henry (October 4, 1930 – January 2, 2009) was an American
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 tea ...
player. He played for several
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 ...
teams in the 1950s.
Life and sports
Henry was born and raised in
Brooklyn, Illinois
Brooklyn (popularly known as Lovejoy), is a village in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. Located two miles north of East St. Louis, Illinois and three miles northeast of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, it is the oldest town incorporated ...
, where he played
softball
Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...
as a youngster. He was discovered by catcher
Josh Johnson, who encouraged him to try baseball.
Goose Curry
Homer Curry (May 19, 1905 – March 30, 1974), nicknamed "Goose", was an American Negro league outfielder and manager from the 1920s to the 1940s.
A native of Mexia, Texas, Curry made his Negro leagues debut in 1928 with the Cleveland Tiger ...
scouted him to play in the
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 ...
, starting him off in a
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
baseball school. He played for three years with 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 ...
, then signed a
minor league
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...
contract, playing in 1952 in the
Mississippi–Ohio Valley League
The Mississippi–Ohio Valley League was a Class-D American minor league baseball league. Evolving from the renamed Illinois State League (1947-1948), the Mississippi–Ohio Valley League operated for seven seasons, from 1949 through 1955. In 195 ...
for Canton and in 1953 for Mount Vernon. During these years he sustained injuries that prevented him from playing further in the minors. He returned to the Negro leagues in 1955–56 with 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. The ...
, but did not play for most of 1957 until he was convinced to return and play with the
Detroit Stars
The Detroit Stars were an American baseball team in the Negro leagues and played at historic Mack Park. The Stars had winning seasons every year but two, but were never able to secure any championships. Among their best players was Baseball Hall of ...
. In 1958 he was selected as an
All-Star for the East-West All Star Game. His last year in the Negro leagues was 1959.
Late in his life, Henry fought a long battle with
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), ...
to secure pension benefits that the league promised Negro league players in the 1990s. In the 2000s, Henry began authoring a
newspaper column
A column is a recurring piece or article in a newspaper, magazine or other publication, where a writer expresses their own opinion in few columns allotted to them by the newspaper organisation. Columns are written by columnists.
What different ...
for the
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
,
Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
, ''
Riverfront Times
The ''Riverfront Times'' (''RFT'') is a free progressive weekly newspaper in St. Louis, in the U.S. state of Missouri, that consists of local politics, music, arts, and dining news in the print edition, and daily updates to blogs and photo galler ...
'' (with the help of his grandson, Sean R. Muhammad) called "Ask a Negro Leaguer". He died January 2, 2009, after a sustained illness.
R.I.P. Prince Joe Henry: The Passing of a Sports Legend
''Riverfront Times
The ''Riverfront Times'' (''RFT'') is a free progressive weekly newspaper in St. Louis, in the U.S. state of Missouri, that consists of local politics, music, arts, and dining news in the print edition, and daily updates to blogs and photo galler ...
'' (January 3, 2009)
References
;Footnotes
External links
Joe Henry
at the Negro League Baseball Players Association
Article
from Riverfront Times
The ''Riverfront Times'' (''RFT'') is a free progressive weekly newspaper in St. Louis, in the U.S. state of Missouri, that consists of local politics, music, arts, and dining news in the print edition, and daily updates to blogs and photo galler ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Henry, Joe
1930 births
2009 deaths
Memphis Red Sox players
Indianapolis Clowns players
Detroit Stars players
People from Brooklyn, Illinois
African-American writers
American writers
Writers from Illinois
Baseball infielders
Baseball players from Illinois
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people