Lawrence Glenn Hope Raines (March 9, 1930 – January 28, 1978) was a

middle infielder An infielder is a baseball player stationed at one of four defensive "infield" positions on the baseball field. Standard arrangement of positions In a game of baseball, two teams of nine players take turns playing offensive and defensive roles. ...

and second baseman in

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), ...

who played from 1957 to 1958 for the

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive Fi ...

.Major League Baseball statistics
''Baseball Reference''

Biography

Born in St. Albans, West Virginia, Raines is recognized for having been the first ballplayer to perform professionally in Minor League Baseball, Negro league baseball,

Japanese Baseball Baseball was introduced to Japan in 1872 and is Japan's most popular participatory and spectator sport. The first professional competitions emerged in the 1920s. The highest level of baseball in Japan is Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), which ...

and the major leagues. Raines debuted professionally with the

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" F ...

of the

Negro American League The Negro American League was one of the several Negro leagues created during the time organized American baseball was segregated. The league was established in 1937, and disbanded after its 1962 season. Negro American League franchises :''Ann ...

, a premier team owned and managed by the legendary

Rube Foster Andrew "Rube" Foster (September 17, 1879 – December 9, 1930) was an American baseball player, manager, and executive in the Negro leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981. Foster, considered by historians to have been per ...

.Akin, William E
''West Virginia baseball: a history, 1865-2000''
McFarland & Company, Inc., 2006. In 1952, he topped the East–West All-Star Game poll with a total of 24,583 votes and started at

shortstop Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball or softball fielding position between second and third base, which is considered to be among the most demanding defensive positions. Historically the position was assigned to defensive specialists wh ...

for the Westen Division at Comiskey Park. In 1953, Raines traveled to Japan where he played two seasons for the

Hankyu Braves The are a Nippon Professional Baseball team formed as a result of the 2004 Nippon Professional Baseball realignment by the merger of the Orix BlueWave of Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes of Osaka, Osaka Prefectur ...

.Minor and Japanese leagues statistics
''Baseball Reference''. Raines posted a .286

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

with eight

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

s and 49

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the ba ...

through 120 games in his season debut. Then in 1953, he won the

Pacific League The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues constituting Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship competes against the winner in the Central League for the annual Japan Series. It currently cons ...

batting title with a .337 average, while collecting 18 homers and 96 RBI in 137 games. Afterwards, Raines returned in 1955 to the United States and agreed to sign a minor league contract with the Cleveland Indians. Raines spent two years in the Cleveland minor league system before being promoted to the Indians in 1957. He was used sparingly in some ways, going up and down between the majors and the minors until 1958. Raines later played from 1959 through 1961 at Triple-A level for the Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds and Minnesota Twins organizations. He returned to Hankyu for one more season in 1962, retiring after that. In between, Raines played winterball in Venezuela for the Rapiños de Occidente club in its 1960-61 season.Gutiérrez, Daniel; Alvarez, Efraim; Gutiérrez (h), Daniel (2006). ''La Enciclopedia del Béisbol en Venezuela''. LVBP, Caracas. Raines died in 1978 in Lansing, Michigan, at the age of 47.

Sources

External links

, o
Retrosheet
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SABR Biography Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Raines, Larry 1930 births 1978 deaths African-American baseball players American expatriate baseball players in Japan Baseball players from West Virginia Chicago American Giants players Cleveland Indians players Hankyu Braves players Indianapolis Indians players Major League Baseball infielders People from St. Albans, West Virginia Rapiños de Occidente players Reading Indians players San Diego Padres (minor league) players Syracuse Chiefs players Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players American expatriate baseball players in Venezuela 20th-century African-American sportspeople

Biography

See also

Sources

External links