Walter Ball (baseball Player)
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George Walter Ball (September 13, 1877 – December 15, 1946) 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 t ...
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
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 ...
. Born in
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,
Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
, from 1893 he played ten years as the only black player on minor white teams in Minnesota and North Dakota. For more than a decade beginning 1903, he played for major teams, mainly in the Chicago region. Sources say he was given the nickname "The Georgia Rabbit" and "Diamond."


Career

He began his baseball career in 1893 in St. Paul, Minnesota playing for the Young Cyclones team. He also played briefly with the Osceola team until 1899, when he went to Grand Forks, North Dakota where he played until the end of the 1900 season. In the first season, Ball won 25 out of 28 games, and helped the team win the state baseball championship of North Dakota. Ball played with the Lakota, North Dakota team for the first part of the 1901 season. He captained the York, North Dakota baseball team the last half of the season and finished the season there. In 1902 he played on the St. Cloud baseball team, helping them win the championship of eastern Minnesota. He wintered in Grand Forks, North Dakota and was signed by
Frank Leland Frank C. Leland (1869 – November 14, 1914) was an American baseball player, field manager and club owner in the Negro leagues. Early life and career beginnings Leland was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He attended Fisk University in Nashville, ...
to play for his Chicago Union Giants in 1903. It was the first colored baseball team Ball had ever played for, and until then he had always been the only black player on white teams. After the 1903 season with the Chicago Union Giants, Ball was signed and played for the Cuban X-Giants for the 1904 season, playing with
Mike Moore Michael Moore is an American filmmaker and author. Michael Moore may also refer to: Academia * Michael G. Moore (fl. 1970s–2020s), professor of education * Michael S. Moore (academic) (fl. 1960s–2020s), American law professor * Michael Moore ...
, Grant Johnson,
Harry Buckner Harry Edward "Green River" Buckner (October 22, 1876 – March 26, 1938), also nicknamed "Buck" and "Goat Head", was an American Negro league pitcher and outfielder in the between 1896 and 1918. Biography A native of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Buckne ...
,
Dan McClellan Daniel J. McClellan (July 1, 1878 - March 10, 1962) was an American baseball pitcher and manager who starred for top-tier independent black teams before the Negro National League was founded. His career began about 1903, and he continued as a pl ...
, and
Big Bill Smith William T. "Big Bill" Smith (1869 – ?) was a Negro leagues catcher and manager for several years before the founding of the first Negro National League. He played for several teams, most of the seasons appear to be played for the Chicago Un ...
. In 1905 Ball played the first half of the season for the Brooklyn Royal Giants. During the last half of the season, he was back playing for the Chicago Union Giants, reportedly winning 48 straight games. In 1906 Ball went to New York to play a season with the Quaker Giants, but the team folded by July 1 of that year. He came back to Chicago and finished the year with the Leland Giants. Working with Reid and Hirshfield, Ball organized and managed the St. Paul Gophers in 1907. He even played on the team part of the season, but didn't finish the season there and moved back to Chicago to finish the year with the Leland Giants. In 1908 Ball went back to Minneapolis, Minnesota and played for the Keystones. However,
Frank Leland Frank C. Leland (1869 – November 14, 1914) was an American baseball player, field manager and club owner in the Negro leagues. Early life and career beginnings Leland was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He attended Fisk University in Nashville, ...
got Ball released from his contract, and he returned to Chicago to finish the season. He played winter ball in 1908-1909 for the Fe club of Havana, Cuba, winning 12 out of 15 games. He prevented the Almendares from winning the pennant which they had won five years in a row. When the winter season closed on March 31, 1909, he joined the Lelands at spring training in Memphis, Tennessee in April and toured the south, never losing a game in Spring Training. Ball opened the 1909 season with the Leland Giants, losing only one out of 25 league games that year."Frank Lelands' Chicago Giants Base Ball Club" Fraternal Printing Company, 1910
/ref> Sportswriter and fellow player Jimmy Smith put Ball on his 1909 "All American Team.""The Base Ball Spirit In The East." Indianapolis Freeman, Indianapolis, Indiana, Saturday, December 25, 1909, Page 7, Columns 1 and 2
/ref> He was still pitching for the Chicago Giants into his 40s when the Negro National League formed in 1920 and 1921.


Death and legacy

Ball died in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
. He is buried at the Lincoln Cemetery at
Blue Island, Illinois Blue Island is a city in Cook County, Illinois, located approximately south of Chicago's Loop. Blue Island is adjacent to the city of Chicago and shares its northern boundary with that city's Morgan Park neighborhood. The population was 22,55 ...
. Six years after his death, Ball received votes listing him on the 1952 ''
Pittsburgh Courier The ''Pittsburgh Courier'' was an African-American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the ''Courier'' was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States. It was acqu ...
'' player-voted poll of the Negro leagues' best players ever."1952 Pittsburgh Courier Poll of Greatest Black Players"
/ref>


References

*


External links

an
Baseball-Reference Black Baseball Stats
an
Seamheads
*(Riley.

Personal profiles at Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. – identical to Riley (confirmed 2010-04-14)
George Walter Ball on Find a Grave
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ball, Walter 1877 births 1946 deaths Leland Giants players Baseball pitchers Baseball players from Detroit Lincoln Giants players Brooklyn Royal Giants players Chicago Giants players Club Fé players Cuban X-Giants players Schenectady Mohawk Giants players St. Paul Colored Gophers players American expatriate baseball players in Cuba 20th-century African-American sportspeople