Louis Charles Gillis Sr. (August 8, 1924 – February 3, 2005), nicknamed "Sea Boy", 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 ...

catcher Catcher is a Baseball positions, position in baseball and softball. When a Batter (baseball), batter takes their at bat, turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the (home plate, home) Umpire (baseball), umpire, and recei ...

from 1946 to 1952. A native of

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

, Gillis graduated from

A. H. Parker High School A.H. Parker High School is a four-year public high school in Birmingham, Alabama. It is one of seven high schools in the Birmingham City School System and is named for longtime Birmingham educator Arthur Harold Parker. School colors are purple an ...

, and served in the

US Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

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 opposin ...

. He broke into the Negro leagues in 1946 with 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 ...

, and later played 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 pres ...

. Gillis died in Birmingham in 2005 at age 80.

References

External links

* Louis Gillis a
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
1924 births 2005 deaths Atlanta Black Crackers players Birmingham Black Barons players Baseball catchers Baseball players from Birmingham, Alabama 20th-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American people {{Negro-league-baseball-catcher-stub