John Wesley Johnson, nicknamed "Smoky", was a

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 1920s and 1930s. Johnson attended

Jarvis Christian College Jarvis Christian University (JCU) is a private historically black Christian college in Wood County, Texas. It was founded in 1912. It had a total undergraduate enrollment of 867 in the fall of 2019. History Although formal instructional prog ...

, and made his Negro leagues debut in 1922 with 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 ...

. He played for several teams, including the

Lincoln Giants The Lincoln Giants were a Negro league baseball team based in New York City from 1911 through 1930. Founding The Lincoln Giants can trace their origins back to the Nebraska Indians, of Lincoln, Nebraska, from the 1890s. According to Sol White ...

and

Chicago American Giants The Chicago American Giants were a Chicago-based Negro league baseball team. From 1910 until the mid-1930s, the American Giants were the most dominant team in black baseball. Owned and managed from 1911 to 1926 by player-manager Andrew "Rube" Fo ...

, and finished his career with a two-year stint 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 ...

in 1932 and 1933.

References

External links

an
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Place of birth missing Place of death missing Year of birth missing Year of death missing Chicago American Giants players Cleveland Browns (baseball) players Cleveland Elites players Cleveland Tate Stars players Cleveland Tigers (baseball) players Lincoln Giants players Memphis Red Sox players Baseball pitchers {{negro-league-baseball-pitcher-stub